How to configure ChromeDriver to initiate Chrome browser in Headless mode through Selenium?

Question

I'm working on a python script to web-scrape and have gone down the path of using Chromedriver as one of the packages. I would like this to operate in the background without any pop-up windows. I'm using the option 'headless' on chromedriver and it seems to do the job in terms of not showing the browser window, however, I still see the .exe file running. See the screenshot of what I'm talking about. Screenshot

This is the code I am using to initiate ChromeDriver:

options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
options.add_experimental_option("excludeSwitches",["ignore-certificate-errors"])
options.add_argument('headless')
options.add_argument('window-size=0x0')
chrome_driver_path = "C:\Python27\Scripts\chromedriver.exe"

Things I've tried to do is alter the window size in the options to 0x0 but I'm not sure that did anything as the .exe file still popped up.

Any ideas of how I can do this?

I am using Python 2.7 FYI

Answer 1

It's a new bug in Chrome / Chromedriver 129 when using the new headless mode on Windows:

In the meantime, use --window-position=-2400,-2400 to hide the window.

chrome_options.add_argument("--window-position=-2400,-2400")

Or use Chrome's older headless mode (while it still exists), until the fix is released:

chrome_options.add_argument("--headless=old")

Answer 2

For me I had to include the Service from the selenium.webdriver.chrome.service and proprly use the parameter service=Service(ChromeDriverManager().install()),

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.service import Service
from webdriver_manager.chrome import ChromeDriverManager
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options

chrome_options = Options()
# chrome_options.add_argument("--headless")
chrome_options.add_argument("--window-size=1920x1080")

chrome_options.add_experimental_option("prefs", {
    "safebrowsing.enabled": True
})
driver = webdriver.Chrome(
    service=Service(ChromeDriverManager().install()), 
    options=chrome_options 
)

Answer 3

Update 2023-05-22

Chrome’s Headless mode got an upgrade and now both headless and headful modes have been unified under the same implementation. See https://developer.chrome.com/articles/new-headless/.

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options

options = Options()
options.add_argument('--headless=new')
driver = webdriver.Chrome(CHROMEDRIVER_PATH, options=options)

To try the new Headless mode, pass the --headless=new command-line flag:

chrome --headless=new

For now, the old Headless mode is still available via:

chrome --headless=old

Currently, passing the --headless command line flag without an explicit value still activates the old Headless mode — but we plan to change this default to new Headless over time.

Update 2018-10-26

You can just do this:

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options

options = Options()
options.headless = True
driver = webdriver.Chrome(CHROMEDRIVER_PATH, options=options)

Original answer

It should look like this:

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options

options = Options()
options.add_argument('--headless')
options.add_argument('--disable-gpu')  # Last I checked this was necessary.
driver = webdriver.Chrome(CHROMEDRIVER_PATH, chrome_options=options)

This works for me using Python 3.6, I'm sure it'll work for 2.7 too.

Answer 4

You can run Headless Chrome with Selenium in Python as shown below. *My answer explains it with Django examples and --headless=new is better because--headless uses old headless mode according Headless is Going Away!:

from selenium import webdriver

options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
options.add_argument("--headless=new") # Here
driver = webdriver.Chrome(options=options)

Or:

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options

options = Options()
options.add_argument("--headless=new") # Here
driver = webdriver.Chrome(options=options)

Answer 5

Update August 20, 2020 (still valid) -- Now is simple!

chrome_options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
chrome_options.headless = True

self.driver = webdriver.Chrome(
            executable_path=DRIVER_PATH, chrome_options=chrome_options)

Answer 6

Since executable path is depricated

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.service import Service

from selenium.webdriver import ChromeOptions
from webdriver_manager.chrome import ChromeDriverManager
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup

options = ChromeOptions()
options.add_argument('--headless=new')
driver = webdriver.Chrome(service=Service(ChromeDriverManager().install()), options=options)

Answer 7

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options

chrome_options = Options()
chrome_options.add_argument('--headless')
chrome_options.add_argument('--disable-gpu')
chrome_options.add_argument('--no-sandbox')
chrome_options.add_argument('--disable-dev-shm-usage')

driver = webdriver.Chrome('/usr/bin/chromedriver', options=chrome_options)
driver.get('https://www.example.com')
print(driver.title)
driver.quit()

Answer 8

At first, I faced an issue - a blank screen while using headless mode for Chrome with Selenium.

I tried overriding user-agent, but it didn't help. And then I saw in the documentation that for Chrome versions 109 and further it recommended setting headless mode the following way:

options.addArguments("--headless=new")

https://www.selenium.dev/selenium/docs/api/java/org/openqa/selenium/chromium/ChromiumOptions.html#setHeadless(boolean)

So the full code to start headless mode is:

ChromeOptions options = new ChromeOptions()
options.addArguments("--window-size=1920,1080")
options.addArguments("--headless=new") 
options.setExperimentalOption("w3c", false) 

Answer 9

RECENT UPDATE

Recently there is an update performed on headless mode of Chrome. The flag --headless is now modified and can be used as below

For Chrome version 109 and above, --headless=new flag allows us to explore full functionality Chrome browser in headless mode. For Chrome version 108 and below (till Version 96), --headless=chrome option will provide us the headless chrome browser.

So, let's add

options.add_argument("--headless=new")

for newer version of Chrome in headless mode as mentioned above.

The below works fine for me with Chrome version 110.0.5481.104

chrome_driver_path = r"E:\driver\chromedriver.exe"
options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
options.add_argument('--disable-gpu')

//New Update
options.add_argument("--headless=new")  

options.binary_location = r"C:\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe"
browser = webdriver.Chrome(chrome_driver_path, options=options)
browser.get('https://www.google.com')

Answer 10

Answer update of 13-October-2018

To initiate a google-chrome-headless browsing context using Selenium driven ChromeDriver now you can just set the --headless property to true through an instance of Options() class as follows:

• Effective code block:

  from selenium import webdriver
  from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options
  
  options = Options()
  options.headless = True
  driver = webdriver.Chrome(options=options, executable_path=r'C:\path\to\chromedriver.exe')
  driver.get("http://google.com/")
  print ("Headless Chrome Initialized")
  driver.quit()
  

---

Answer update of 23-April-2018

Invoking google-chrome in headless mode programmatically have become much easier with the availability of the method set_headless(headless=True) as follows :

• Documentation :

  set_headless(headless=True)
      Sets the headless argument
  
      Args:
          headless: boolean value indicating to set the headless option
  

• Sample Code :

  from selenium import webdriver
  from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options
  
  options = Options()
  options.set_headless(headless=True)
  driver = webdriver.Chrome(options=options, executable_path=r'C:\path\to\chromedriver.exe')
  driver.get("http://google.com/")
  print ("Headless Chrome Initialized")
  driver.quit()
  

Note : --disable-gpu argument is implemented internally.

---

Original Answer of Mar 30 '2018

While working with Selenium Client 3.11.x, ChromeDriver v2.38 and Google Chrome v65.0.3325.181 in Headless mode you have to consider the following points :

• You need to add the argument --headless to invoke Chrome in headless mode.

• For Windows OS systems you need to add the argument --disable-gpu

• As per Headless: make --disable-gpu flag unnecessary --disable-gpu flag is not required on Linux Systems and MacOS.

• As per SwiftShader fails an assert on Windows in headless mode --disable-gpu flag will become unnecessary on Windows Systems too.

• Argument start-maximized is required for a maximized Viewport.

• Here is the link to details about Viewport.

• You may require to add the argument --no-sandbox to bypass the OS security model.

• Effective windows code block :

  from selenium import webdriver
  from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options
  
  options = Options()
  options.add_argument("--headless") # Runs Chrome in headless mode.
  options.add_argument('--no-sandbox') # Bypass OS security model
  options.add_argument('--disable-gpu')  # applicable to windows os only
  options.add_argument('start-maximized') # 
  options.add_argument('disable-infobars')
  options.add_argument("--disable-extensions")
  driver = webdriver.Chrome(chrome_options=options, executable_path=r'C:\path\to\chromedriver.exe')
  driver.get("http://google.com/")
  print ("Headless Chrome Initialized on Windows OS")
  

• Effective linux code block :

  from selenium import webdriver
  from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options
  
  options = Options()
  options.add_argument("--headless") # Runs Chrome in headless mode.
  options.add_argument('--no-sandbox') # # Bypass OS security model
  options.add_argument('start-maximized')
  options.add_argument('disable-infobars')
  options.add_argument("--disable-extensions")
  driver = webdriver.Chrome(chrome_options=options, executable_path='/path/to/chromedriver')
  driver.get("http://google.com/")
  print ("Headless Chrome Initialized on Linux OS")
  

---

Steps through YouTube Video

How to initialize Chrome Browser in Maximized Mode through Selenium

Outro

How to make firefox headless programmatically in Selenium with python?

---

tl; dr

Here is the link to the Sandbox story.

Answer 11

Update August 2021:

The fastest way to do is probably:

from selenium import webdriver  

options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
options.set_headless = True
driver = webdriver.Chrome(options=options)

options.headless = True is deprecated.

Answer 12

There is an option to hide the chromeDriver.exe window in alpha and beta versions of Selenium 4.

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.service import Service as ChromeService # Similar thing for firefox also!
from subprocess import CREATE_NO_WINDOW # This flag will only be available in windows
chrome_service = ChromeService('chromedriver', creationflags=CREATE_NO_WINDOW)
driver = webdriver.Chrome(service=chrome_service) # No longer console window opened, niether will chromedriver output

You can check it out from here. To pip install beta or alpha versions, you can do "pip install selenium==4.0.0.a7" or "pip install selenium==4.0.0.b4" (a7 means alpha-7 and b4 means beta-4 so for other versions you want, you can modify the command.) To import a specific version of a library in python you can look here.

Answer 13

UPDATED It works fine in my case:

from selenium import webdriver

options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
options.headless = True
driver = webdriver.Chrome(CHROMEDRIVER_PATH, options=options)

Just changed in 2020. Works fine for me.

Answer 14

Solutions above don't work with websites with cloudflare protection, example: https://paxful.com/fr/buy-bitcoin.

Modify agent as follows: options.add_argument("user-agent=Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/84.0.4147.125 Safari/537.36")

Fix found here: What is the difference in accessing Cloudflare website using ChromeDriver/Chrome in normal/headless mode through Selenium Python

Answer 15

System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver",
         "D:\\Lib\\chrome_driver_latest\\chromedriver_win32\\chromedriver.exe");
ChromeOptions chromeOptions = new ChromeOptions();
chromeOptions.addArguments("--allow-running-insecure-content");
chromeOptions.addArguments("--window-size=1920x1080");
chromeOptions.addArguments("--disable-gpu"); 
chromeOptions.setHeadless(true);
ChromeDriver driver = new ChromeDriver(chromeOptions);

Answer 16

chromeoptions=add_argument("--no-sandbox");
add_argument("--ignore-certificate-errors");
add_argument("--disable-dev-shm-usage'")

is not a supported browser

solution:

Open Browser    ${event_url}    ${BROWSER}   options=add_argument("--no-sandbox"); add_argument("--ignore-certificate-errors"); add_argument("--disable-dev-shm-usage'")

don't forget to add spaces between ${BROWSER} options

Answer 17

  
from chromedriver_py import binary_path
 
 
chrome_options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
   chrome_options.add_argument('--headless')
   chrome_options.add_argument('--no-sandbox')
   chrome_options.add_argument('--disable-gpu')
   chrome_options.add_argument('--window-size=1280x1696')
   chrome_options.add_argument('--user-data-dir=/tmp/user-data')
   chrome_options.add_argument('--hide-scrollbars')
   chrome_options.add_argument('--enable-logging')
   chrome_options.add_argument('--log-level=0')
   chrome_options.add_argument('--v=99')
   chrome_options.add_argument('--single-process')
   chrome_options.add_argument('--data-path=/tmp/data-path')
   chrome_options.add_argument('--ignore-certificate-errors')
   chrome_options.add_argument('--homedir=/tmp')
   chrome_options.add_argument('--disk-cache-dir=/tmp/cache-dir')
   chrome_options.add_argument('user-agent=Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/61.0.3163.100 Safari/537.36')
   
  driver = webdriver.Chrome(executable_path = binary_path,options=chrome_options)

Answer 18

Try using ChromeDriverManager

from selenium import webdriver
from webdriver_manager.chrome import ChromeDriverManager 
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options
chrome_options = Options()
chrome_options.set_headless()
browser =webdriver.Chrome(ChromeDriverManager().install(),chrome_options=chrome_options)
browser.get('https://google.com')
# capture the screen
browser.get_screenshot_as_file("capture.png")

Answer 19

So after correcting my code to:

options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
options.add_experimental_option("excludeSwitches",["ignore-certificate-errors"])
options.add_argument('--disable-gpu')
options.add_argument('--headless')
chrome_driver_path = "C:\Python27\Scripts\chromedriver.exe"

The .exe file still came up when running the script. Although this did get rid of some extra output telling me "Failed to launch GPU process".

What ended up working is running my Python script using a .bat file

So basically,

1. Save python script if a folder

2. Open text editor, and dump the following code (edit to your script of course)

   c:\python27\python.exe c:\SampleFolder\ThisIsMyScript.py %*

3. Save the .txt file and change the extension to .bat

4. Double click this to run the file

So this just opened the script in Command Prompt and ChromeDriver seems to be operating within this window without popping out to the front of my screen and thus solving the problem.

Answer 20

1. The .exe would be running anyway. According to Google - "Run in headless mode, i.e., without a UI or display server dependencies."

2. Better prepend 2 dashes to command line arguments, i.e. options.add_argument('--headless')

3. In headless mode, it is also suggested to disable the GPU, i.e. options.add_argument('--disable-gpu')