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()

Dubitable

Answer 1

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:

• Access to file download dialog in Firefox
• Firefox + Selenium WebDriver and download a csv file automatically

Talia

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

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

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

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

@Dunc Set browser.download.useDownloadDir to True. – Roee

@Talia what is equivalent of option browser.helperApps.neverAsk.saveToDisk for chromdriver? – Swabber

How to specify more than one mimetype in "browser.helperApps.neverAsk.saveToDisk"? By comma-separating the values? – Martinet

How do I use this in IE? – Barong

If you are trying to download files with no specified mimetype, e.g.: .dmp, you may use mimetype application/octet-stream – Certified

Answer 2

@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()

Leigha

Answer 3

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.

Ribbonwood

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? – Franfranc

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

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