How To Change Default Download Directory For Firefox Browser in Selenium WebDriver

Hello Folks,

Every browse has its default download directory. Whenever you download a file, it gets downloaded in default download directory. Generally default download directory is as below:

C:\Users\<UserName>\Downloads

You can always change it through browser setting.

When selenium script downloads any file, it will also be downloaded in same default download directory.

Note: If you change default download directory manually through browser setting, it will not be same when selenium scripts launch a browser. Selenium launch browser with default settings.

It is advisable to download files through automation script in a separate folder where you can easily verify successful download of file. It also helps you to keep all related downloaded file at one place for a project. I generally keep downloaded files with in project hierarchy.

Setting custom download directory is not straightforward as Chrome browser. It has three steps to do:

1. Let Firefox know that you want to change default download directory to user defined.

      profile.setPreference(“browser.download.folderList”, 2);

2. Set the user defined download directory path

      profile.setPreference(“browser.download.dir”, System.getProperty(“user.dir”) + File.separator + “externalFiles”
     + File.separator + “downloadFiles” + File.separator);

3. Surpass Save To Disk popup for file types using theri MIME code separated by comma

      profile.setPreference(“browser.helperApps.neverAsk.saveToDisk”,“application/vnd.microsoft.portable-executable”);

Java Code:

[java]import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
import org.openqa.selenium.By;
import org.openqa.selenium.firefox.FirefoxDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.firefox.FirefoxOptions;
import org.openqa.selenium.firefox.FirefoxProfile;

public class ChangeDownloadDirOfFirefox {

public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {

// Setting Firefox driver path
System.setProperty("webdriver.gecko.driver", "./exefiles/geckodriver.exe");

// Creating firefox profile
FirefoxProfile profile = new FirefoxProfile();

// Instructing firefox to use custom download location
profile.setPreference("browser.download.folderList", 2);

// Setting custom download directory
profile.setPreference("browser.download.dir", System.getProperty("user.dir") + File.separator + "externalFiles"
+ File.separator + "downloadFiles" + File.separator);

// Skipping Save As dialog box for types of files with their MIME
profile.setPreference("browser.helperApps.neverAsk.saveToDisk",
"text/csv,application/java-archive, application/x-msexcel,application/excel,application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document,application/x-excel,application/vnd.ms-excel,image/png,image/jpeg,text/html,text/plain,application/msword,application/xml,application/vnd.microsoft.portable-executable");

// Creating FirefoxOptions to set profile
FirefoxOptions option = new FirefoxOptions();
option.setProfile(profile);
// Launching browser with desired capabilities
FirefoxDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver(option);

// URL loading
driver.get("https://www.seleniumhq.org/download/");

// Click on download selenium server jar file
driver.findElement(By.xpath("//p[text()=’Download version ‘]/a")).click();

}
}
[/java]

Output:

 

That’s it. Hopefully It will be helpful for you.

#ThanksForReading

#HappySelenium