Create a new folder and make it as default download in selenium

Question

I am doing a selenium test in python where I want to create a new directory with current time and make it as default download folder. So whenever I run the script the default download location should be a new directory created at that time and the file should download there.

from selenium import webdriver
from datetime import datetime
import os

today = datetime.now()

current_dir = os.mkdir("/Users/Desktop/" + today.strftime('%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S'))
browser = webdriver.Chrome('/Users/Desktop/chromedriver')
chromeOptions = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
prefs = {"download.default_directory" : current_dir }
chromeOptions.add_experimental_option("prefs",prefs)

I am running the above script and it creates a new folder but the default download location doesn't change as the file still downloads at chrome://Downloads. Is there any way we can change the new created folder as default download directory

Answer 1

The problem here is with the os.mkdir method. The os.mkdir() method in Python is used to create a directory named path with the specified numeric mode. This method does not return any value.

Execution of the code with debugging:

If you look at the above image, you can see that the current_dir is of None type. So, the folder is created on the desktop, but the path to it is not being captured.

Answer 2

You need to create folder name and folder itself in two separate code lines:

current_dir_name = "/Users/Desktop/" + today.strftime('%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S')
os.mkdir(current_dir_name)

and then path current_dir_name into

chromeOptions = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
prefs = {"download.default_directory" : current_dir_name}
chromeOptions.add_experimental_option("prefs", prefs)

Answer 3

To create a new directory with current time you can use the datetime module as follows:

• Code Block:

  from datetime import datetime
  import os
  
  
  new_dir = "C:/Users/user-name/Desktop/" + datetime.now().strftime('%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S')
  print(new_dir)
  if not os.path.exists(new_dir):
      os.makedirs(new_dir) 
  

• Console Output:

  C:\Users\user-name\Desktop\Debanjan\PyPrograms>new_directory.py
  C:/Users/user-name/Desktop/2020-08-04_18-01-46
  
  C:\Users\user-name\Desktop\Debanjan\PyPrograms>new_directory.py
  C:/Users/user-name/Desktop/2020-08-04_18-02-01
  
  C:\Users\user-name\Desktop\Debanjan\PyPrograms>new_directory.py
  C:/Users/user-name/Desktop/2020-08-04_18-02-05
  

• Snapshot of the newly created directories:

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This usecase

Now you can implement the same logic to create a new directory on each execution and set as the default download location using Selenium as follows:

from selenium import webdriver
from datetime import datetime
import os

new_dir = "C:/Users/user-name/Desktop/" + datetime.now().strftime('%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S')
print(new_dir)
if not os.path.exists(new_dir):
    os.makedirs(new_dir) 

options = webdriver.ChromeOptions() 
options.add_experimental_option("prefs", {"download.default_directory" : new_dir})
driver = webdriver.Chrome(options=options, executable_path=r'C:\WebDrivers\chromedriver.exe')

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Reference

You can find a couple of relevant detailed discussions in:

• Python: Unable to download with selenium in webpage