How to download chromedriver for selenium (Step-by-Step Guide)

Are you looking to automate tests with Selenium but can’t get the correct version of ChromeDriver? You’re not alone.

Many testers and developers are struggling with errors like:

❌ SessionNotCreatedException: This version of ChromeDriver only supports Chrome version X

❌ chromedriver executable needs to be in PATH

Here is the solution. 

This article will teach you how to download, install, and set up ChromeDriver for Selenium in Windows, Linux, and MAC OS (without errors).

Step 1: Check Your Chrome Version

It is necessary to check your Chrome version before downloading chromedriver.

How to Check Chrome Version

There are two methods to check the Chrome browser version.

Method 1:

• Open Google Chrome.
• Type chrome://settings/help in the address bar.
• Look for the Version Number (e.g., My earlier Chrome browser version was: 134.0.6998.89 and current version is: 135.0.7049.41)

Method 2:

Click on the three dots at the top-right corner of the Chrome browser. It will open the menu.

Select a setting from the menu.

It will open the Chrome settings page.

On the settings page, you will find the About Chrome menu at the bottom-left corner.

Click on it.

On the About Chrome page, you can see your Chrome browser’s version as shown in a given image.

Why does this matter?

Because ChromeDriver must match your Chrome version. If they do not match, you might get an error when executing your Selenium test.

Tips: Always use the latest version of Google Chrome and the latest stable release version of Chromedriver to minimize errors.

Update on Latest stable version release: Version 135.0.7049.42 of ChromeDriver and Chrome browsers are available to download.

Learn a detailed guide on what is WebDriver in Selenium.

Step 2: Download the Correct ChromeDriver

Now, let’s download the right version of ChromeDriver.

Find the ChromeDriver version that matches your Chrome browser and OS, and download the right file for your system:

• Visit the official ChromeDriver website to download the latest version of ChromeDriver.
• Navigate to the Stable version section.
• Download the ChromeDriver binary for your operating system from the Downloads section on the official ChromeDriver website.

Choose your OS:

• Windows: chromedriver-win64.zip
• Mac (Intel or ARM): chromedriver-mac-x64.zip / chromedriver-mac-arm64.zip
• Linux: chromedriver-linux64.zip

Copy the URL from the table as per your OS and Chrome browser version and open it in the browser.

It will download the Zip file.

Once downloaded, extract the ZIP file to get the chromedriver executable.

Open the extracted folder. You will get the chromedriver.exe (Executable file) inside it.

Tip: Store chromedriver in a folder from where you can access it easily, like D:/chromedriver/

If you are working with the Edge browser or Firefox browser in Selenium, you can learn how to download EdgeDriver and GeckoDriver with a detailed guide.

Step 3: Install and Set Up ChromeDriver in Selenium

Now that you have ChromeDriver, but Selenium doesn’t know where it is. You need to tell Selenium where to find it.

There are two options.

Option 1: Set Chromedriver Path in Environment Variable

• Search for Edit the system environment variables from Windows search.
• Click on the Environment Variable button from the Advanced tab.
• Select Path from the System Variables section and click on the Edit button.
• Click on the New button and set the Chromedriver Path as shown in the image below, and click OK.

That’s it.

Option 2: Specify ChromeDriver Path in Code

If you don’t want to modify system settings, you can also manually set the path in Selenium code. Here is an example:

System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver", "D:\chromedriver.exe");
WebDriver driver= new ChromeDriver();		
driver.get("https://only-testing-blog.blogspot.com/");

Note: Replace “D:\chromedriver.exe” with the path where you extracted ChromeDriver.

The Easy Way – Use WebDriver Manager

It is annoying to download ChromeDriver and all other drivers manually every time the browser version updates. Instead of manually downloading ChromeDriver, let WebDriver Manager handle everything:

Here’s a way:

Install WebDriver Manager in Eclipse

If you are using Java with Eclipse, you can create a Maven Project and add WebDriver Manager Dependencies in the pom.xml file:

• Install Maven in Eclipse
• Create a Maven project in Eclipse.
• Get the latest webdrivermanager dependency from MVN Repository.
• Add the webdrivermanager dependency in the pom.xml file.

Now, you can use WebDriver Manager in your Selenium tests.

// Automatically download and setup ChromeDriver
WebDriverManager.chromedriver().setup();
        
// Launch Chrome browser
WebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver();

Downloading Older/Previous Versions of ChromeDriver

Note: It is not recommended to use older versions of ChromeDriver.

Recently, I was looking to download the previous version of ChromeDriver to verify browser compatibility for one of our under-development websites.

I found a reliable source to download older versions of ChromeDriver after 2+ hours of Google search. So I thought, let me share it with all of you guys.

When you open that page, it contains direct download URLs of ChromeDriver for all previous version releases.

Example: If you are looking to download chromedriver 131.0.6724.0, you will find a URL like below on that page. You can open it in your browser to start the download.

https://storage.googleapis.com/chrome-for-testing-public/131.0.6724.0/win64/chromedriver-win64.zip

Similarly, you will find separate ChromeDriver download URLs for all older versions like 128, 129, 130, etc, for Linux, macOS, and Windows.

Common Errors and Fixes

Error: SessionNotCreatedException – ChromeDriver version mismatch

Fix: Download the correct ChromeDriver version matching your Chrome browser.

Error: chromedriver executable needs to be in the PATH

Fix: Add ChromeDriver to the system PATH or specify its full path in your code.

Error: selenium.common.exceptions.WebDriverException

Fix: Update ChromeDriver or use WebDriver Manager.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Have any issues? Drop a comment below!

Aravind