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How to View the Mobile Version of WordPress Sites From Desktop

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Do you want to preview the mobile version of your WordPress site?

Previewing the mobile layout helps you see how your website looks on mobile devices. When your site is under development or even when it’s live, it’s often easier to view the mobile version on a desktop computer. Then, you can quickly make changes and see their effect.

In this article, we will show you how to view a mobile version of the WordPress site from a desktop.

How to view the mobile version of WordPress sites from desktop

Why You Should Preview Your Mobile Layout

More than 50% of your website visitors will be using their mobile phones to access your site. Around 3% will be using a tablet.

This means that having a site that looks great on mobile is very important.

In fact, mobile is so important that Google is now using a mobile-first index for its website ranking algorithm. This means that Google will use your site’s mobile version for indexing. You can learn more by reading our ultimate guide to WordPress SEO.

Even if you are using a responsive WordPress theme, you still need to check how your site looks on mobile. You might want to create different versions of key landing pages that are optimized for mobile users’ needs.

It’s important to keep in mind that most mobile previews will not be completely perfect because there are so many different mobile screen sizes and browsers. Your final test should always be to look at your site on an actual mobile device.

That said, let’s look at how you can view the mobile version of your WordPress website on a desktop.

We are going to cover two different methods for testing how your site looks on mobile using desktop browsers. You can click the links below to jump to any section:

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If you’d prefer written instructions, then continue reading.

Method 1: Using WordPress’s Theme Customizer

You can use the WordPress theme customizer to preview the mobile version of your WordPress site.

Simply log in to your WordPress dashboard and go to the Appearance » Customize screen.

Go to theme customizer from WordPress dashboard

This will open up the WordPress theme customizer. For this tutorial, we will be using the Astra theme.

Depending on what theme you are using, you may see slightly different options in the left-hand menu.

View options in theme customizer

At the bottom of the screen, simply click the mobile icon.

You will then see a preview of how your site looks on mobile devices.

View mobile screen preview

This method for previewing the mobile version is particularly useful when you haven’t finished creating your blog or when it’s in maintenance mode.

You can now make changes to your website and check how they look before you push them live.

Method 2: Using Google Chrome’s DevTools Device Mode

The next method for how to view mobile version of website is using the Google Chrome browser.

The Google Chrome browser has a set of developer tools that let you run various checks on any website, including seeing a preview of how it looks on mobile devices.

Simply open the Google Chrome browser on your desktop and visit the page you want to check. This could be the preview of a page on your site, or it could even be your competitor’s website.

Next, you need to right-click on the page and select the ‘Inspect’ option.

Right click to open the inspect option

A new panel will open up on the right-hand side or at the bottom of the screen.

It will look something like this:

View the inspect tool

In the developer view, you will be able to see your site’s HTML source code, CSS, and other details.

Next, you need to click the ‘Toggle Device Toolbar’ button to change to the mobile view.

Click the toggle device toolbar

You will see the preview of your website shrink to the mobile screen size.

Your website’s general appearance will also change in the mobile view. For instance, the menus will collapse, and additional icons will move to the left instead of the right of the menu.

View the mobile version in inspect tool window

When you hover your mouse cursor over the mobile view of your site, it will become a circle. This circle can be moved with your mouse to mimic the touchscreen on a mobile device.

You can also hold down the ‘Shift’ key, then click and move your mouse to simulate pinching the mobile screen to zoom in or out.

Above the mobile view of your site, you will see some additional options.

Change the dimensions for responsiveness

These settings let you do several extra things. You can check how your site would look on different types of smartphones.

For example, you can select a mobile device like an iPhone and see how your site will appear on the device.

You can also simulate your site’s performance on fast or slow 3G connections. You can even rotate the mobile screen using the rotate icon.

Bonus: How to Create Mobile-Specific Content in WordPress

It’s important that your website has a responsive design so that mobile visitors can easily navigate your website.

However, simply having a responsive site may not go far enough. Users on mobile devices are often looking for different things than desktop users.

Many premium themes and plugins let you create elements that display differently on desktop versus mobile. You can also use a page builder plugin like SeedProd to edit your landing pages in mobile view.

Previewing a custom page on mobile

You should consider creating mobile-specific content for your lead generation forms. On mobile devices, these forms should ask for minimal information, ideally just an email address. They should also look good and be easy to close.

For more details, you can see our guide on how to create a landing page in WordPress.

Another great way to create mobile-specific popups and lead-generation forms is with OptinMonster. It is the most powerful WordPress popup plugin and lead-generation tool on the market.

Edit campaign design on mobile

OptinMonster has specific device-targeting display rules that let you show different campaigns to mobile users vs desktop users. You can even combine this with OptinMonster’s geo-targeting feature and other advanced personalization features to get the best conversions.

You can see our guide on how to create mobile popups that convert for more information.

We hope this article helped you learn how to preview the mobile layout of your site. You may also want to see our expert picks for the best plugins to convert a WordPress site into a mobile app and learn how to increase blog traffic.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

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Editorial Staff

Editorial Staff at WPBeginner is a team of WordPress experts led by Syed Balkhi with over 16 years of experience in WordPress, Web Hosting, eCommerce, SEO, and Marketing. Started in 2009, WPBeginner is now the largest free WordPress resource site in the industry and is often referred to as the Wikipedia for WordPress.

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Reader Interactions

17 CommentsLeave a Reply

  1. Syed Balkhi says

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  2. Ralph says

    On my website I have even 75-77% mobile traffic every single month. My theme is responsive but article preview (mobile) in wordpress itself never looks like a post on my phone. Nor on my wifes phone.
    With my new website I’m making from scratch I even think about building it 100% for mobile users.
    Is SeedProd ok for that? Or I should look up for specific builder?

  3. Moinuddin waheed says

    This is very important aspect as most of the traffic comes from the mobile itself and having a good user interface will definitely help in good visual experience.
    I have used generateblocks pro and generatepress and it has also the same feature to tweak the mobile version appearance of the website.
    Almost all the themes and page builders now a days include this feature.

  4. Jiří Vaněk says

    Elementor also offers a similar function for those building websites using this builder. At the bottom of the left-hand menu, there’s a toggle feature to display the layout. Here, you can switch between desktop, tablet, and mobile views. You can also add your own breakpoints and create custom resolutions for testing purposes. Personally, I’ve found it very useful to check the website’s appearance across multiple devices because, surprisingly, due to the responsive template, the article layout, especially with Elementor, can look dramatically different.

    • WPBeginner Support says

      Thank you for sharing, page builders have started adding this view toggle for their users :)

      Admin

      • Moinuddin Waheed says

        I think almost all the page builders are now making this option to make the mobile version look and appearance to be as good as the desktop version.
        I have been using seedprod and found it to be very smooth in testing mobile version.
        the best thing about seedprod is that we don’t need to make much changes to have good mobile appearance rather a small tweak does the job in most of the cases.

  5. Sakirah says

    Hello, I have a problem with loading my site on mobile. It displays as Mobile Site view, classic version without theme. I have to click View Full Site at the bottom to display the responsive theme. I want to force View Full Site so that the responsive theme is auto display to any mobile.

    • WPBeginner Support says

      You would want to check your site to see if you have a plugin that would be enabling that mobile view as that should not be default WordPress behavior.

      Admin

  6. daniel says

    there’s a much easier way to do this just by clicking the inspect tool and enable mobile mode ( button on the yop left with a phone icon ).

  7. Larissa mokom says

    Hello, Thank you for all the information you are sharing on here i am able to follow your guides step by step to be able to come up with my blog my question is how would i be able to fix the problem of my widgets ( home,about, contact us) not displaying when my website is pulled on a mobile device but on a computer everything is looking good.

    • WPBeginner Support says

      You would want to reach out to your theme’s support to ensure this isn’t a choice based on the theme’s styling.

      Admin

  8. Samson Onuegbu says

    Whoa!

    WPbeginner always give the best hacks that many never know existed.

    We will be launching our site soon and you have just made my responsive site building job easier.

    Thanks a lot!

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