What is Postman?
Postman is a platform for designing, building, testing, and documenting APIs.
What is an API?
An API is fully known as Application Programming Interface. It is an intermediary that allows two applications to communicate with each other.
APIs are used to send and receive data within and across applications. For example, when you try to use an app on your device, the app connects to the internet and sends some data to the server. The server retrieves the data, interprets it, and performs the necessary actions, then sends a response back to your device.
The API is the medium mostly used to send this data and return it to you.
NB: A device could be a laptop, phone, desktop, etc.
Navigating Postman
For context, you need to download and Install postman.
You can jump right in by using the web app version through this link go. postman.co/home OR you can download the desktop app version here.
Note: You will be required to create an account. Signing up on Postman is free.
Next, let’s take a tour through Postman.
Postman has various tools and controls that help you manage your API projects.
On a high level, the landing interface consists of a header, Sidebar, Workbench, and footer.
The header contains the following menu: Home, Workspaces, API Network, Explore, Search Postman, Settings, Notifications, Your Avatar, and Teams.
HEADER
The Home menu takes you to your homepage which includes your recently visited workspaces, links to resources for your team (if applicable), and a list of APIs that you can explore. There are also links to learn more about Postman in the lower part of this page.
With Workspaces, you can search, view your recent workspaces, and create workspaces.
With API Network, you can explore public, private, or partner API networks by clicking the links in the dropdown.
With Explore, you can browse popular APIs, teams, workspaces, collections, etc.
With the Search Postman box, you can search for workspaces, collections, teams, and APIs on Postman.
With the Settings menu, you can access Postman’s settings. You can also access Postman’s Support Center as well as other resources.
Notifications - view notifications about your recent activity from your team, new updates, and other necessary information.
Avatar - access and manage your account through your avatar.
Team - manage your team, upgrade your plan, and access your billing dashboard, resource usage, and other important information.
SIDEBAR
With the sidebar, you can access Collections, APIs, Environment, Mock Servers, Monitors, and History.
To see the task options available for each element in the sidebar, you can select the element name, e.g. Collections.
The task options will vary depending on what you select, but common to most elements, you can create, search, view, and import a resource for an element.
History - This keeps a history of all requests you’ve made. You can access the requests here. Your history is synced across all devices. You can also save and clear your history here.
WORKBENCH
This is the area where the majority of your work is done. Whatever element you are working on, either collection, APIs, environments, or mock servers, your work happens in the workbench. There are tabs in the workbench that lets you organize your work. You can manage these tabs. You also have access to a right sidebar that contains options that are specific to the selected element you are working with. E.g. for Collections, documentation, selecting environment variables, comments, generating code snippets in various languages for a request, changelog, etc.
While working on a Collection in the workbench, you can add, run, save, rename, document, delete, edit a request, etc. You can also add and share folders in a collection.
FOOTER
On the footer, you can find different icons that let you do the following:
Hide or unhide your sidebar.
Check if your workspace is in sync.
Search through the current workspace using the Find and Replace box.
Access the console to inspect and debug your requests.
View, manage, and sync cookies.
Capture a request
Open the Collection’s runner
View, recover, or permanently delete a deleted collection.
Toggle between a two-pane view and a single-pane view
Access more resources through the help icon.
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