How To Download Different Files Using Selenium WebDriver

In my PREVIOUS POST, We have learnt about how to create and use custom profile of Firefox browser to use It In selenium webdriver software automation test. Now let me show you how to create Firefox custom profile run time and set Its properties to download any file using selenium webdriver software testing tool. Many times you need to download different files from software web application like MS Excel file, MS Word File, Zip file, PDF file, CSV file, Text file, ect..

It Is tricky way to download file using selenium webdriver software testing tool. Manually when you click on link to download file, It will show you dialogue to save file In your local drive as shown In bellow given Image.

Now selenium webdriver software automation testing tool do not have any feature to handle this save file dialogue. But yes, Selenium webdriver has one more very good feature by which you do not need to handle that dialogue and you can download any file very easily. We can do It using webdriver's Inbuilt class FirefoxProfile and Its different methods. Before looking at example of downloading file, Let me describe you some thing about file's MIME types. Yes you must know MIME type of file which you wants to download using selenium webdriver software testing tool.

What Is MIME of File

MIME Is full form of Multi-purpose Internet Mail Extensions which Is useful to Identify file type by browser or server to transfer online.

You need to provide MIME type of file In your selenium webdriver test so that you must be aware about It. There are many online tools available to know MIME type of any file. Just google with "MIME checker" to find this kind of tools.

In our example given bellow, I have used MIME types as shown bellow for different file types In bellow given selenium webdriver test.

1. Text File (.txt) - text/plain
2. PDF File (.pdf) - application/pdf
3. CSV File (.csv) - text/csv
4. MS Excel File (.xlsx) - application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet
5. MS word File (.docx) - application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document

Example Of downloading different files using selenium webdriver

package Testng_Pack;

import org.openqa.selenium.By;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.firefox.FirefoxDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.firefox.FirefoxProfile;
import org.testng.annotations.AfterTest;
import org.testng.annotations.BeforeTest;
import org.testng.annotations.Test;

public class downloadingfile {
 WebDriver driver;
 
 @BeforeTest
 public void StartBrowser() {
  //Create object of FirefoxProfile in built class to access Its properties.
  FirefoxProfile fprofile = new FirefoxProfile();
  //Set Location to store files after downloading.
  fprofile.setPreference("browser.download.dir", "D:\\WebDriverdownloads");
  fprofile.setPreference("browser.download.folderList", 2);
  //Set Preference to not show file download confirmation dialogue using MIME types Of different file extension types.
  fprofile.setPreference("browser.helperApps.neverAsk.saveToDisk", 
    "application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet;"//MIME types Of MS Excel File.
    + "application/pdf;" //MIME types Of PDF File.
    + "application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document;" //MIME types Of MS doc File.
    + "text/plain;" //MIME types Of text File.
    + "text/csv"); //MIME types Of CSV File.
  fprofile.setPreference( "browser.download.manager.showWhenStarting", false );
  fprofile.setPreference( "pdfjs.disabled", true );
  //Pass fprofile parameter In webdriver to use preferences to download file.
  System.setProperty("webdriver.gecko.driver", "D:\\Selenium Files\\geckodriver.exe");
  driver = new FirefoxDriver(fprofile);  
 } 
 
 @Test
 public void OpenURL() throws InterruptedException{
  driver.get("http://only-testing-blog.blogspot.com/2014/05/login.html");
         //Download Text File
  driver.findElement(By.xpath("//a[contains(.,'Download Text File')]")).click();
  Thread.sleep(5000);//To wait till file gets downloaded.
                //Download PDF File
  driver.findElement(By.xpath("//a[contains(.,'Download PDF File')]")).click();
  Thread.sleep(5000);
                //Download CSV File
  driver.findElement(By.xpath("//a[contains(.,'Download CSV File')]")).click();
  Thread.sleep(5000);
                //Download Excel File
  driver.findElement(By.xpath("//a[contains(.,'Download Excel File')]")).click();
  Thread.sleep(5000);
                //Download Doc File
  driver.findElement(By.xpath("//a[contains(.,'Download Doc File')]")).click();
  Thread.sleep(5000);  
 }
 
 @AfterTest
 public void CloseBrowser() {  
  driver.quit();  
 }
}

When you run above example, It will download all 5(Text, pdf, CSV, docx and xlsx) files one by one and store them In D:\WebDriverdownloads folder automatically as shown In bellow given example.

InterruptedException Is used with method OpenURL to handle checked exception of Thread.sleep(5000). View detailed tutorials of exception handling In selenium WebDriver software test automation on THIS LINK.

This way you can download any file using selenium webdriver like zip file, exe file, etc.. Just know your file's MIME type and download It as shown In above example.

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