Open and close new tab with Selenium WebDriver in OS X

Question

I'm using the Firefox Webdriver in Python 2.7 on Windows to simulate opening (Ctrl+t) and closing (Ctrl + w) a new tab.

Here's my code:

from selenium import webdriver  
from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys

browser = webdriver.Firefox()
browser.get('https://www.google.com')
main_window = browser.current_window_handle
# open new tab
browser.find_element_by_tag_name('body').send_keys(Keys.CONTROL + 't')
browser.get('https://www.yahoo.com')

# close tab
browser.find_element_by_tag_name('body').send_keys(Keys.CONTROL + 'w')

How to achieve the same on a Mac? Based on this comment one should use browser.find_element_by_tag_name('body').send_keys(Keys.COMMAND + 't') to open a new tab but I don't have a Mac to test it and what about the equivalent of Ctrl-w?

Thanks!

Involuntary

close tab is Command + 'w'. You can think of command key as control key replacement. I guess you will have to borrow one from your friend to test your code... – Disinclined

it doesn't work on chrome?! – Albigenses

Answer 1

There's nothing easier and clearer than just running JavaScript.

Open new tab: driver.execute_script("window.open('');")

Wakerly

Hi thanks very much! But your command opens a new window, not a new tab. If you show me how to open a new tab with JS I'll accept your answer. – Involuntary

Answer 2

open a new tab:

browser.get('http://www.google.com')

close a tab:

browser.close()

switch to a tab:

browser.swith_to_window(window_name)

Landsturm

+1 for browser.close(); I presumed this was to do trash collection on the browser object and did not realize it was a method for closing tabs – Angi

@StevenByrne Actually it will cause memory leak if you do not quit the process manually(for example, in python sys.exit(0)) after loop runs, no matter driver.close() or driver.quit(). – Landsturm

Sorry my bad. driver.quit() will prevent memory leak. And when you have only 1 tab, driver.close() is equal to driver.quit(). – Landsturm

Answer 3

You can choose which window you want to close：

window_name = browser.window_handles[0]

Switch window：

browser.switch_to.window(window_name=window_name)

Then close it：

browser.close()

Maltose

Answer 4

Just to combine the answers above for someone still curious. The below is based on Python 2.7 and a driver in Chrome.

Open new tab by: driver.execute_script("window.open('"+URL+"', '__blank__');") where URL is a string such as "http://www.google.com".

Close tab by: driver.close() [Note, this also doubles as driver.quit() when you only have 1 tab open].

Navigate between tabs by: driver.switch_to_window(driver.window_handles[0]) and driver.switch_to_window(driver.window_handles[1]).

Ravelment

Answer 5

Open new tab:

browser.execute_script("window.open('"+your url+"', '_blank')")

Switch to new tab:

browser.switch_to.window(windows[1])

Contravallation

NameError: name 'windows' is not defined – Playground

windows = browser.window_handles – Quenchless

Answer 6

This worked for me. When I was doing driver.close and not switching back to old window, the new tab was not closing [I am still not able to figure out why].

driver.execute_script("window.open('');") # Open an empty tab
driver.switch_to.window(driver.window_handles[1]) # Switch to that tab (given you only have two tabs)
driver.get(new_tab_url) # Open url in the new tab
# Do your stuff here###

####################### 
driver.close() # close the new tab
driver.switch_to.window(driver.window_handles[0]) #This step is also important, go back to your old tab (given you have only two tabs)

Schwann

Why do we to switch the tabs after .close() ? I did not understand the working of that part – Muskrat

In case you have multiple windows open. say 0, 1, 2, 3 (1 was opened from 0). When you do close, you are in 1. You might switch to 2 instead of 0. I was not sure and did not bother to check, which is why I used this. You can skip this step and see what happens and then decide to change the code accordingly. Please push an edit here as well if you do – Schwann

Answer 7

IMHO all the above answers didn't exactly solve the original problem of closing a tab in a window and not closing the entire window or opening a blank tab.

my solution:

browser.switch_to.window("tab1") #change the tab1 to the id of the tab you want to close
browser.execute_script("window.close('','_parent','');")

Benghazi

Answer 8

This worked for me:

url = "https://www.google.com"
#open a new tab    
driver.switch_to.new_window()
driver.get(url)
#add more code here
#....
#close the tab if you have only this tab open driver.close() will also execute driver.quit() and close the browser
driver.close()
#switch back to the ith tab <tab index starts from 0>
driver.switch_to.window(driver.window_handles[i])

Leander