Collections and workspaces

Saved requests live in collections, optionally inside folders, and collections live in a workspace. This page covers the Requests sidebar, the collection settings that requests inherit, workspaces of every kind, and getting requests in and out.

The Requests sidebar

The sidebar of the Requests section is headed Collections. Its buttons:

• Sort — Sort by: Default (your order) or Name.
• Select — tick several collections to delete them, or to put them in a group, in one go.
• + — New request, New collection (mod+shift+N), Import… (mod+O) and New group.

Below them:

• Filter requests narrows the tree to the names that match.
• Favourites sits on top: every collection and request you starred, one click away.
• Groups gather collections under a heading you can fold. A group’s menu has Rename group…, New group… and Delete group. Deleting a group keeps its collections.

Drag and drop

Drag requests, folders and collections to move or reorder them. A line shows where the item will land; Esc cancels the drag. Dragging is off while the sidebar is sorted by Name — switch back to Default (your order) to arrange by hand.

Your arrangement is personal

Groups, favourites, which items are folded and the sort order belong to you on this computer. They are never synced to a team or written to a folder workspace, so each teammate arranges the same collections their own way.

The right-click menu

Delete… asks you to type the item’s name to confirm; a Copy button next to the name saves you typing it. Run… opens the collection runner.

Collection and folder settings

Settings… on a collection or a folder opens its settings. Whatever is set here applies to every request inside.

Scripts run from the outside in: the collection’s first, then each folder’s, then the request’s own. See Scripts, tests and the runner.

Copy a collection to another workspace

Copy to workspace… opens Copy “X” to another workspace. Pick a workspace under To: — a personal one or a team workspace.

If a collection with the same name is already there, choose:

• Merge — requests and folders with the same name (in the same folder) are updated, new ones are added, nothing is removed;
• Replace — the copy takes the old one’s place;
• Duplicate — keep both; you are asked for a new name.

Copying into a team workspace shares the collection with that team straight away. Files picked for multipart or binary bodies stay behind.

Workspaces

A workspace is a set of collections, environments and globals. You can keep as many as you like and switch between them with the workspace picker at the top of the sidebar.

Kinds of workspace

Local and folder workspaces are both Personal. Folder workspaces are explained in full on the Git page, team workspaces on Teams with DialCatz Den.

The workspace picker

The picker lists your Personal workspaces (local ones, and folder ones with their path) and the team workspaces, grouped by server host, each with your role. Hover a personal row for Rename and Delete…; on a team workspace you own, the hover shows Rename (for everyone) and Delete on DialCatz Den… (which opens the Den’s admin panel).

The bottom of the picker has:

• New workspace…
• Open a folder as a workspace… — an empty folder starts a new workspace in it.
• Connect to a team server…

And for the current workspace:

Deleting your last personal workspace leaves you with a new, empty Personal one — there is always somewhere to work. Deleting a folder workspace only removes it from DialCatz; the folder and its files stay.

Team workspaces cannot be deleted from DialCatz itself. To hide one, untick it on the Team page; to delete it for everyone, an owner uses the Den’s admin panel.

Create a workspace

New workspace… opens New personal workspace and asks Where should it live?:

• Local — kept by DialCatz on this computer only.
• In a folder — saved as files you can share through Git; connect a repository now or later.
• From a Git repository — clone a repository and open the workspace in it.

The last two are walked through step by step in Make a folder workspace.

Import

Import… (mod+O, or + → Import…) opens one list of cards. Pick the one that matches what you have.

File or paste

A collection, environment or export zip (DialCatz or Postman), OpenAPI / Swagger, or a cURL command.

Press Choose a file… — JSON, YAML or zip, and several files at once — or paste the text into the box and press Import.

What happens next:

• One collection file goes straight in.
• A zip, several files, or environment files open a list where you choose what comes in.
• An OpenAPI server URL becomes an environment with a baseUrl variable, and the requests use {{baseUrl}}.
• OpenAPI bodies come in as JSON, form, multipart (with file fields), XML / text or binary. Form values are filled in only from the spec’s own examples.

There is no import for Insomnia exports or HAR files.

From DevCatz

Turns a DevCatz site into an environment and a collection of its routes. See Import a DevCatz site.

From DoCatz

Turns the API services of a running DoCatz compose project into an environment (DoCatz · <project>, an address per service) and their routes into collections: one for the service you pick, or one per service with All. Front ends, plain images and background workers stay in DoCatz. See Import a DoCatz project.

Importing the same site or project again adds only the routes the collection does not have yet, and leaves your requests as they are — or makes a new collection, if you choose. See Import the same site or project again.

Move everything from Postman

Collections, environments and globals, picked one by one — from an export or with your Postman API key. Two ways:

With an API key — no waiting for an export email.

1. In Postman: your avatar → Settings → API keys → Generate API key.
2. Paste the PMAK-… key into DialCatz.
3. Pick the Postman workspaces, then Next: choose collections.
4. Tick the collections and environments you want, and import.

The key is used for this move only and is not kept. If Postman rate-limits the requests, DialCatz waits and tries again by itself.

From an export file

1. In Postman: Settings → Account → Export data, and download the zip when it arrives.
2. In DialCatz, choose the zip, the unzipped folder, or the JSON files inside it.
3. Tick what you want.

Either way:

• Postman variables marked secret stay secret.
• Scripts and descriptions are kept.
• File paths for uploads are dropped — pick the files again on this computer.
• Globals too adds Postman’s globals to this workspace’s globals.
• A list of skipped files shows anything that could not be read.

Export

Save dialogs start in your Downloads folder.

Export a collection

Export… in a collection’s menu offers two formats:

Auth values in the collection go into the file as they are — a token typed into a request travels with it. Files picked for multipart or binary bodies stay out.

Export an environment

From an environment’s ⋯ menu or the header in Variables — see Export and import environments.

Export a whole workspace

Export… in the workspace menu writes everything in the workspace into one zip:

• <name>-<YYYY-MM-DD>.dialcatz_export.zip (DialCatz format), or .postman_export.zip (Postman format).
• The layout is the same as Postman’s data export: a collections/ folder, an environments/ folder and a globals.<format>_globals.json file.
• Include values and Include secret values work as for an environment: without values, each person fills in their own; secret values are off by default, because the file is plain text.
• The file is written readable by you only (mode 0600).

To bring it back, use Import → File or paste in DialCatz, or Postman’s own Import with the zip.

Last updated 2026-11-03