Hunchly OSINT Tool: How to Capture, Preserve and Organise Web Evidence

Key takeaways

• Hunchly captures pages automatically as you browse, so you stop losing evidence to deleted posts and forgotten screenshots.
• Each capture carries a timestamp and a hash, which helps you show the page was not changed after capture.
• Tools do not make evidence admissible. Your method, your notes and the law of your jurisdiction do.
• Hunchly only records what your browser renders. Mobile apps, private messages you have no right to view, and anything outside the browser are outside its reach.
• Practise on your own accounts and public pages first, and follow the platform's terms and Indian law while you do.

What problem does Hunchly solve?

Online investigators lose evidence in two ways. The page changes or disappears, or the investigator forgets to record where a screenshot came from. Hunchly targets both. It runs while you browse and saves each page you open, so the record builds itself while you think about the case.

Hunchly's own site, hunch.ly, is the place to confirm its history, start date, licensing and current feature list, because those change faster than a blog post does.

How does Hunchly work?

Hunchly has two parts that talk to each other on your own computer.

1. The browser extension. It watches the pages you load in Chrome and sends each one to the dashboard. Check the vendor site for the browsers it currently supports. Do not assume Firefox works because another site says so.
2. The dashboard. This is a desktop application that stores your cases. You open a case, browse, and the pages appear in the case as a searchable list.

For every page it keeps the rendered content, the URL, the time of capture and a hash of the saved data. A hash is a fixed-length fingerprint. If anyone changes the file later, the fingerprint no longer matches. That is how you show the capture is the same one you made on the day.

What Hunchly captures and what you do by hand

How to set it up

1. Buy or start a licence from the Hunchly website and install the dashboard on the computer you will investigate from.
2. Install the Chrome extension from the link the vendor gives you, then connect it to the dashboard and enter your licence.
3. Use a separate browser profile for investigations. It keeps your personal logins, bookmarks and extensions out of the evidence.
4. Create a new case in the dashboard and give it a clear name. Use something like 2026-10-fraud-complaint-014, not "test".
5. Set the extension to capture into that case, then browse.

A sensible working routine

Before you browse

Write down what you are looking for and why you are allowed to look. For a client engagement, that means the scope in your contract. For a journalist or student project, it means the question you are trying to answer. This one habit separates an investigation from random browsing.

While you browse

• Keep one case per subject. Mixed cases are hard to defend and hard to read.
• Add a note when you find something that matters. "Profile links to the same phone number as the invoice" is useful. "Interesting" is not.
• Tag consistently. Choose a small tag list at the start, such as person, domain, payment, and keep to it.
• Do not log in to accounts you do not own, and do not use fake identities where a platform's terms or the law forbid it.

When you finish

Export the case, then compute a hash of the exported file and store the hash separately from the file. On Linux or macOS:

sha256sum case-014-report.pdf

On Windows PowerShell:

Get-FileHash.\case-014-report.pdf -Algorithm SHA256

Keep a read-only copy of the export, and keep a second copy somewhere else. Write down who handled the file, when, and why. That log is your chain of custody.

Can Hunchly evidence be used in an Indian court?

It can be offered, but the tool alone does not make it admissible. Electronic records in India are governed by the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023, which replaced the Indian Evidence Act from 1 July 2024. Its Section 63 corresponds to the old Section 65B and asks for a certificate that explains how the electronic record was produced. Courts also look at whether you obtained the material lawfully. Speak to a lawyer before you rely on any capture in a real case, and treat this article as background, not legal advice.

Limits you should know about

• It records your browser, not the world. Content in a mobile app, a private group you cannot open, or a video stream you did not play will not be saved.
• Dynamic pages can hide things. If a page loads data only after you scroll or click, scroll and click, then check the capture shows it.
• Capturing is not permission. Saving a page does not give you the right to collect or publish personal data from it. Read the platform's terms and keep to what your case needs.
• It costs money. If you only need one or two pages saved, a manual screenshot with a visible URL and clock, plus a hash, may be enough for a classroom exercise.

How Hunchly fits with other OSINT tools

Hunchly is the notebook, not the search engine. You find leads with other tools and let Hunchly record what you open. A usual pairing is a directory like OSINT Framework for finding sources, link-analysis tools for mapping relationships, and Hunchly for the evidence trail. Whether a particular tool has a direct integration, such as Maltego, SpiderFoot or Shodan, is something to check on the vendor site.

For disk and browser-history evidence on a seized device, you need forensic software instead. Our guide to Autopsy and web history recovery covers that side, and the piece on social media forensics shows where online capture fits in a wider case.

Common mistakes

• Browsing first and creating the case afterwards. The early pages are the ones you lose.
• Using your personal browser profile, so private tabs and personal accounts end up in the case.
• Never backing up the case folder. A failed disk ends the investigation.
• Writing no notes and trusting memory. Six weeks later nobody knows why page 212 mattered.
• Handing over the case with no hash and no handling log.

Next steps

If you want to move from tools to a career in investigation and defence, start with the fundamentals in our Cyber Security course, then look at forensics through CHFI. For more OSINT methods, read the best AI tools for OSINT gathering.

Related reading

• Real-World Applications of OSINT | Exploring Successes and Failures in Cybersecurity, Law Enforcement, and Intelligence Investigations