How do I automatically download files from a pop up dialog using selenium-python

Question

I am trying to automatically download files from a pop up dialog using selenium-python.

The firefox popups look like this

Answer 1

I've discovered a useful solution that hopefully will help somebody out there.

You can skip the prompt altogether with firefox if you're starting the download with a click by holding the ALT key.

from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys
from selenium.webdriver.common.action_chains import ActionChains
...
profile.set_preference("browser.altClickSave", True)
...
element = driver.find_element_by_xpath("//a")
ActionChains(driver).key_down(Keys.ALT).click(element).key_up(Keys.ALT).perform()

This should download any file without needing to specify MIME type of anything.

Answer 2

Based on Amey's answer 1) and of course Yi Zeng's blog (in ruby) quoting Selenium itself doesn’t interact with system-level dialogs like this as well as the documentation, here is the python snippet to resolve the issue

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.firefox.firefox_profile import FirefoxProfile

profile = FirefoxProfile()
profile.set_preference("browser.helperApps.neverAsk.saveToDisk", 'application/pdf')
driver = webdriver.Firefox(firefox_profile=profile)

driver.get(target_url)
#specific to target_url
driver.find_element_by_css_selector('a[title="Click to Download"]').click()

Answer 3

FirefoxProfile fxProfile = new FirefoxProfile();
 fxProfile.SetPreference("browser.download.panel.shown", false);
 fxProfile.SetPreference("browser.helperApps.neverAsk.openFile", "text/csv,application/vnd.ms-excel");
 fxProfile.SetPreference("browser.helperApps.neverAsk.saveToDisk", "text/csv,application/vnd.ms-excel");
 fxProfile.SetPreference("browser.download.folderList", 2); 
 fxProfile.SetPreference("browser.download.dir", "c:\\mydownloads");
 IwebDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver(fxProfile);

Answer 4

In python, but this will work in Java as well because the firefox preferences are a javascript:

profile.set_preference("browser.download.panel.shown", False)
profile.set_preference("browser.helperApps.neverAsk.openFile","text/csv,application/vnd.ms-excel")
profile.set_preference("browser.helperApps.neverAsk.saveToDisk", "text/csv,application/vnd.ms-excel")
profile.set_preference("browser.download.folderList", 2);
profile.set_preference("browser.download.dir", "c:\\firefox_downloads\\")
browser = webdriver.WebDriver(firefox_profile=profile)

this works for CSV files, modify it for whatever filetype you are downloading.