Downloading file to specified location with Selenium and python

Question

Ok so far i have my programing going to the website i want to download link from and selecting it, then the firefox dialogue box shows up and i don't know what to do. i want to save this file to a folder on my desktop. I am using this for a nightly build so i need this to work. Please help.

Here is my code that grabs the download link from the website:

driver = web driver.Firefox()
driver.implicitly_wait(5)
driver.get("Name of web site I'm grabbing from")
driver.find_element_by_xpath("//a[contains(text(), 'DEV.tgz')]".click()

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 12:32:21Z

77

You need to make Firefox save this particular file type automatically.

This can be achieved by setting browser.helperApps.neverAsk.saveToDisk preference:

from selenium import webdriver

profile = webdriver.FirefoxProfile()
profile.set_preference("browser.download.folderList", 2)
profile.set_preference("browser.download.manager.showWhenStarting", False)
profile.set_preference("browser.download.dir", 'PATH TO DESKTOP')
profile.set_preference("browser.helperApps.neverAsk.saveToDisk", "application/x-gzip")

driver = webdriver.Firefox(firefox_profile=profile)
driver.get("Name of web site I'm grabbing from")
driver.find_element_by_xpath("//a[contains(text(), 'DEV.tgz')]").click()

More explanation:

browser.download.folderList tells it not to use default Downloads directory
browser.download.manager.showWhenStarting turns of showing download progress
browser.download.dir sets the directory for downloads
browser.helperApps.neverAsk.saveToDisk tells Firefox to automatically download the files of the selected mime-types

You can view all these preferences at about:config in the browser. There is also a very detailed documentation page available here: About:config entries.

Besides, instead of using xpath approach, I would use find_element_by_partial_link_text():

driver.find_element_by_partial_link_text("DEV.tgz").click()

Also see:

edited May 23, 2017 at 12:32

CommunityBot

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answered Aug 11, 2014 at 20:25

alecxe

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9 Comments

Jerad Bill Over a year ago

I am getting an error on the 'profile = webdriver.FFP' line, IndentationError: unexpected indent

alecxe Over a year ago

@JeradBill this is something to do with your particular code. Not the one I've provided.

cprn Over a year ago

Any good idea on doing so in a WebDriver agnostic way? (e.g. Firefox and PhantomJS interchangeably)

Blaszard Over a year ago

Is it possible to set browser.helperApps.neverAsk.saveToDisk to all files? I don't know about the file type I download.

Mostafa Over a year ago

@alecxe what is equivalent of option browser.helperApps.neverAsk.saveToDisk for chromdriver?

|

leanne · Accepted Answer · 2023-03-06 17:44:27Z

6

@alecxe's answer updated - firefox_profile has been deprecated; this answer works as of March 2023, Firefox 110, Python 3.9, Selenium 4.8.2:

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.firefox.options import Options

options = Options()
options.set_preference("browser.download.folderList", 2)
options.set_preference("browser.download.manager.showWhenStarting", False)
options.set_preference("browser.download.dir", 'PATH TO DESKTOP')
options.set_preference("browser.helperApps.neverAsk.saveToDisk", "application/x-gzip")

driver = webdriver.Firefox(options=options)
driver.get("Name of web site I'm grabbing from")
driver.find_element_by_xpath("//a[contains(text(), 'DEV.tgz')]").click()

answered Mar 6, 2023 at 17:44

leanne

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Comments

Ravinath Edirisinghe · Accepted Answer · 2015-03-30 12:02:45Z

2

If the application is generated dynamically (mime-types) using Chrome browser will be a better approach since the Chrome will not open the file download pop-up.But multiple download option should be enabled if you need multiple downloads.

answered Mar 30, 2015 at 12:02

Ravinath Edirisinghe

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3 Comments

seth127 Over a year ago

I am trying to do this same thing using Chrome, but I am having trouble setting the location of where to download the file. The same Profile functionality doesn't seem to work. Does anyone know how to set the download location in Chrome?

NiNa Over a year ago

chromePrefs.put("download.default_directory",downloadFilepath); _ChromeOptions.setExperimentalOption("prefs", chromePrefs);

Mostafa Over a year ago

@niNa how about browser.helperApps.neverAsk.saveToDisk ?

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