Is it possible to run Google Chrome in headless mode with extensions?

Question

I cannot use my currently installed extensions in Google Chrome using headless mode. Is there any way to enable them?

An easy way to check if the extensions work is by adding, for example, the "Comic Sans Everything" extension.

So Google looks like that:

However, if I take a screenshot of the page using the headless mode (google-chrome --headless --disable-gpu --screenshot https://www.google.com), the result is:

Related: [Using Google Chrome's Puppeteer to load an extension](https://github.com/GoogleChrome/puppeteer/issues/659) - though it won't work headless. — Dennis, Feb 07 '18 at 22:15

score 47 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 28 '17 at 18:26

47

You can run Chrome with extensions headless using Xvfb.

Install Xvfb. On Fedora sudo dnf install xorg-x11-server-Xvfb
xvfb-run google-chrome --remote-debugging-port=9222 --disable-gpu https://www.google.com
Use chrome-remote-interface (or another Chrome Debug Protocol client) to trigger the screenshot.

More complicated, but it does work. It's what we use for headless chrome extension testing.

answered Sep 28 '17 at 18:26

Graham King

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Just to clarify: this solution does not use Chrome's built-in "headless" mode, but instead renders Chrome on a virtual display. – Xan Feb 08 '18 at 10:20
1

Thank you. `xvfb-run` also works with Selenium without remote debugging options, for example: `xvfb-run --server-args="-screen 0 1920x1080x24" python run-selenium.py`. See [How To Run Your Tests Headlessly with Xvfb](http://elementalselenium.com/tips/38-headless) – bartolo-otrit Jul 16 '20 at 08:25

Xan · Accepted Answer · 2022-09-24T18:48:58.260

43

EDIT: This answer is no longer correct, see https://stackoverflow.com/a/73079789/934239

No, it's not possible, and Chrome developers decided against implementing it in any near future due to complexity of the task.

If you look at that issue you may get the idea that they are still considering it due to ChromeDriver requirements - but instead they decided to make ChromeDriver work without extensions (through DevTools).

edited Sep 24 '22 at 18:48

answered Jul 28 '17 at 11:42

Xan

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will headless mode support extension in the future? are there any other web browser that support headless mode with extensions? – Aug 03 '17 at 20:47
2

Yes firefox supports them. This is a crappy missing feature. – Nicholas DiPiazza Mar 19 '18 at 13:53
2

This answer is not valid anymore: ``--headless=chrome`` was added in 2021 as a way of running Chrome in headless mode without loss of features. See the comment here: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=706008#c36 – Michael Mintz Sep 24 '22 at 18:43
@MichaelMintz I invite you to make a new answer, would gladly upvote it. – Xan Sep 24 '22 at 18:44
That newer answer has already been added by someone else. – Michael Mintz Sep 24 '22 at 18:47
have a try "--haedless=new" for chrome version > 109 :) – NGloom Feb 28 '23 at 07:10

score 16 · Answer 3 · edited Aug 01 '22 at 17:18

You can use pyvirtualdisplay to run the chrome with zero display on your server. The best thing is you can run extensions by using this trick.

Here is my implementation:

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options
import time
from pyvirtualdisplay import Display

display = Display(visible=0, size=(800, 600))
display.start()

chrome_options = Options()

chrome_options.add_extension("proxy.zip")

driver = webdriver.Chrome(
    executable_path='/usr/bin/chromedriver', 
    chrome_options=chrome_options
)
time.sleep(3)
driver.get("https://ipinfo.io/json")
print(driver.page_source)
driver.close()

display.stop()

You need to install xvfb on your server/machine:

sudo apt install -y xvfb
pip install pyvirtualdisplay

Running it on my AWS Server

Just to know, did you use the flags `--headless --no-sandbox`? — Alexandre Ferreira, Nov 27 '21 at 00:44

score 14 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 22 '22 at 11:41

14

Actually it works now, they fixed it. You can use

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

Works like a charm. https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=706008#c36

answered Jul 22 '22 at 11:41

wano300882

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this might be a dumb question, but what's `options` here and how do I use this code snippet to run headless chrome? – Jin Nov 27 '22 at 19:23

MrKvic · Answer 5 · 2023-02-11T10:58:15.433

14

Due to recent changes in headless mode, if you are having problems, you might need to use --headless=new instead of --headless=chrome

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

edit: https://www.selenium.dev/blog/2023/headless-is-going-away/

edited Feb 11 '23 at 10:58

answered Jan 20 '23 at 00:02

MrKvic

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4

THANKS! How did you get that info? – manuell Jan 30 '23 at 13:55
1

@manuell I dug around and found this bug issue https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1380881 Now it is added to selenium website too https://www.selenium.dev/blog/2023/headless-is-going-away/ – MrKvic Feb 11 '23 at 10:55
thanks! "--headless=new" works here – NGloom Feb 28 '23 at 06:59

score 3 · Answer 6 · answered Aug 11 '22 at 14:07

3

options.add_argument("--headless=chrome") works

answered Aug 11 '22 at 14:07

Julien

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Yet it doesn't behave in the same way. On mac, `--headless=chrome` still creates a chrome instance that shows in the app switched (command-tab), whereas `--headless` does not. If this is different, what else is? – ndtreviv Sep 22 '22 at 13:19

score 2 · Answer 7 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

No, google-chrome in headless mode doesn't supports extensions yet.

skyos...@chromium.org in his comment clearly mentioned:

We've decided against implementing extension support in headless mode for now because supporting all the required features is rather complex

You can find the complete analysis in Add extension support for headless chrome

eseckler@chromium.org in his comment mentioned the real time issues as:

A lot of extension APIs are specific to non-headless browsers, so can't be supported in headless chrome.
Of the APIs we could feasibly support, only parts are implemented in such a way that we can currently reuse them for headless chrome.
Changing this requires a lot of refactoring that doesn't seem justified given the benefit we'd gain.

He further added,

Either way, extensions would likely have to be adapted to work with headless chrome due to (1). So even if we solved (2), most existing extensions would not be compatible. (This also renders headless chrome unsuitable for testing chrome extensions.)

Most if not all functions that extensions could provide to headless chrome can be realized via the DevTools API that headless exposes to its users. If you have a use case that isn't supported via the DevTools API, please file a feature request.

Moreover, in his comment, alexclarke@chromium.org clearly mentioned:

I realize a lot of folks would like to use extensions with headless but unfortunately that's a large project which we have /no plans to do/. The problem is Headless Chromium is a content embedder which means it doesn't have access to anything from other content embedders such as chrome and unfortunately extensions are a chrome feature.

In another comment he further added, if you're using Selenium through DevTools you can build a proxy. You can filter URLs and modify headers via Network.setRequestInterception and Network.continueInterceptedRequest.

score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Jul 31 '21 at 00:12

I haven't tried it but look at this

https://github.com/php-webdriver/php-webdriver/blob/2ed6645812603b20a7a249d4a66e286eb407300c/lib/Chrome/ChromeOptions.php#L83

phpdoc reads

/**
     * Add a Chrome extension to install on browser startup. Each path should be
     * a packed Chrome extension.
     *
     * @param array $paths
     * @return ChromeOptions
     */
    public function addExtensions(array $paths)

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Jan 13 '23 at 17:21

If options.add_argument("--headless=chrome") doesn't work for you, you can use pyvirtualdisplay. First install pyvirtualdisplay with pip and on Linux machine run apt-get install xvfb. You can find here how to use pyvirtualdisplay https://github.com/ponty/PyVirtualDisplay

And you need to remove --headless argument from ChromeOptions.

score 0 · Answer 10 · answered Jul 27 '23 at 18:04

0

I have tried it and it works well!

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

answered Jul 27 '23 at 18:04

Dennis Wu

1

Is it possible to run Google Chrome in headless mode with extensions?

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