Detect Safari Private Browsing in AppleScript

Question

I'm trying to write AppleScript which would tell whether a window of Safari is in private mode. Here is the AppleScript to do so in Chrome:

tell application "Google Chrome"
    set incognitoIsRunning to the (count of (get every window whose mode is "incognito")) is greater than 0
end tell

if (incognitoIsRunning) then
    return "-- PRIVATE MODE --"
end tell

The old solution to see whether private browsing menu option is checked no longer works.

score 0 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:17

0

There is a quirk in Safari that can be exploited to determine whether private mode is enabled: Safari does not allow localStorage.setItem to be used in private mode (see related StackOverflow post). We can take advantage of this by using a snippet of JavaScript from within AppleScript. If localStorage is not supported, the JavaScript throws an error (caught by the try/catch block), which we use to set our boolean.

tell application "Safari"
    set checkMode to "
         var isprivate = false;
          try {
               window.localStorage.setItem('foobar', 1);
          } catch(e) {
               isprivate = true;
          }
       isprivate;
"
    set isPrivate to do JavaScript checkMode in current tab of first window
end tell

log isPrivate

Of course you will need to adjust this AppleScript to set the appropriate target window/tab within Safari.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:17

Community

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answered Mar 02 '17 at 03:20

pipwerks

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Unfortunately this no longer works with Safari 13. (And I believe some earlier versions as well.) – Michael Mior Jun 08 '20 at 16:58
Unfortunately, not a surprise -- using feature/quirk sniffing is always precarious and will eventually fail when browsers are updated. – pipwerks Jun 10 '20 at 00:20
For sure. Especially since browsers actively want to prevent detection of private browsing. – Michael Mior Jun 10 '20 at 18:04

Detect Safari Private Browsing in AppleScript

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