Microsoft collects a massive amount of telemetry data from your Windows 11 machine in the background. This includes error reports, hardware configurations, application usage statistics, and sometimes even memory dumps. While Microsoft claims this “Diagnostic Data” is anonymized and used strictly to improve the operating system, privacy-conscious users and enterprise administrators often want to verify exactly what information is being transmitted.
Instead of relying on third-party packet sniffers, Microsoft provides an official, built-in tool called the “Diagnostic Data Viewer.” This utility allows you to intercept, review, and analyze the raw JSON payloads of the telemetry data that Windows 11 is actively preparing to send to Microsoft’s servers. However, this data logging is disabled by default to save disk space.
How to Enable the Diagnostic Data Viewer in Windows 11
You must enable the local data recording before you can use the viewer application.
- Click the Start button and select the gear icon to open Settings.
- In the left-hand navigation sidebar, click on Privacy & security.
- Under the “Windows permissions” section, click on Diagnostics & feedback.
- Scroll down the page and expand the section labelled View diagnostic data by clicking on it.
- Click the toggle switch next to “Turn on the Diagnostic Data Viewer” so that it is On. (Note: This will dedicate up to 1GB of your hard drive to temporarily store the telemetry logs).
- Directly below the toggle switch, click the button labelled Open Diagnostic Data Viewer.
- If you do not have the viewer app installed, this will launch the Microsoft Store and prompt you to download the free “Diagnostic Data Viewer” application. Install it.
Once the app is installed and launched, it will begin populating with the raw telemetry events generated by your system. You can browse through the categories on the left side of the app to see exactly what device connectivity, software setup, and browsing history data Windows 11 is collecting behind the scenes.