CODEWITHSUNDEEP
seleniumselenium-chromedriver
Leo Bouloc
Leo Bouloc

Reputation: 311

Disable all downloads with ChromeDriver and Selenium

When accessing some static files such as hudoig.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2016-FW-1007.pdf (random example) with Selenium using ChromeDriver, the file is automatically downloaded to my default download directory.

Is there a way to disable this default behavior and prevent files from being saved ? Thank you.

NB: My question is similar to the following unanswered question but in my case I actually want to disable downloads even when clicking download links: Is it possible to disable file download in chrome using selenium

Upvotes: 3

Views: 8907

Answers (2)

Oluwafemi Sule
Oluwafemi Sule

Reputation: 38952

Preferences for ChromeDriver are an experimental options.

You could set download preferences explicitly and have PDF documents opened directly in the Chrome browser.

For example:

from selenium import webdriver

options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()

prefs = {
    "download.open_pdf_in_system_reader": False,
    "download.prompt_for_download": True,
    "plugins.always_open_pdf_externally": False
}
options.add_experimental_option(
    "prefs", prefs
)
driver = webdriver.Chrome(
    options=options
)
driver.get(
"https://www.hudoig.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2016-FW-1007.pdf"
)
driver.close()

Or you could set the download location to write the document to a virtual device file as /dev/null effectively discarding it.

For example:

prefs = {
    "download.open_pdf_in_system_reader": False,
    "download.prompt_for_download": True,
    "download.default_directory": "/dev/null",
    "plugins.always_open_pdf_externally": False
}
options.add_experimental_option(
    "prefs", prefs
)

You could set download restrictions to block all downloads.

prefs = {
    "download_restrictions": 3,
}
options.add_experimental_option(
    "prefs", prefs
)

Upvotes: 9

natn2323
natn2323

Reputation: 2061

Another approach that you could take would be disabling the browser's ability to download. Namely, configure the DownloadRestrictions policy, discussed here.

Upvotes: 1

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