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I can't set profile with automatic download for CSV file when using selenium.

Among the others, I tried solutions presented in the following questions:

On my "regular firefox" I can set the rule to download it automatically, it works, however when geckodriver runs firefox, this rule/profile does not apply.

I have administrator rights. And As I read on another question, my orange bar in firefox is a result of controlling it by webdriver.

Here is sample of my code:

profile = webdriver.FirefoxProfile()
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", "CSV File,text/csv,application/vnd.ms-excel")
profile.set_preference("browser.download.folderList", 2);
profile.set_preference("browser.download.dir", "F:\\Delete")
driver=webdriver.Firefox(firefox_profile=profile)

1. Could you guys help me understand what am I mising?

2. How can I download CSV files automatically?

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2
  • these solutions are 6 and 9 years old. In this times Selenium or rather browsers could change everything in settings. Commented Dec 31, 2020 at 18:20
  • I tested code on some CSV - and I had to use application/octet-stream with text/csv,application/vnd.ms-excel because sometimes servers may send file with different type. Commented Dec 31, 2020 at 18:43

2 Answers 2

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I tested your code on some CSV and I had to use application/octet-stream because sometimes servers may send file with different type.

As I remeber application/octet-stream was popular method on web pages to force downloading - especially for PDF - because some users may have settings in browser which display PDF with built-in viewer instead of downloading.

Minimal working code with example CSV

from selenium import webdriver

url = 'https://data.europa.eu/euodp/pl/data/dataset/covid-19-coronavirus-data'

profile = webdriver.FirefoxProfile()
profile.set_preference("browser.download.panel.shown", False)
profile.set_preference("browser.helperApps.neverAsk.openFile","text/csv,application/vnd.ms-excel,application/octet-stream")
profile.set_preference("browser.helperApps.neverAsk.saveToDisk", "CSV File,text/csv,application/vnd.ms-excel")
profile.set_preference("browser.download.folderList", 2);
profile.set_preference("browser.download.dir", "/home/furas/")
driver = webdriver.Firefox(firefox_profile=profile)

driver.get(url)

item = driver.find_element_by_xpath('//div[@id="dataset-resources"]//li[2]//a')
print('text:', item.text)
print('href:', item.get_attribute('href'))
item.click()

EDIT: For other users: it needed also binary/octet-stream

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11 Comments

Hello, thank you for the answer. I tried out your code, however I am still prompted by Firefox to open/save file. There is no error message, just regular window "where to save".
maybe you need other option like profile.set_preference("browser.helperApps.alwaysAsk.force", False)
I inserted the code before line: profile.set_preference("browser.download.folderList", 2); The same effect - window pop out With your example (the same link etc), I did not download the file, but firefox successfully defined it as "auto-download", because when i clicked hyperlink, file was automatically downloaded to Download location. Link generated: opendata.ecdc.europa.eu/covid19/casedistribution/csv Is it relative that I download the file after simulation of clicking "download" button?
if you use DevTools in Firefox/Chrome (tab: Network) then you can see all requests send to browser - and then you can see what headers it was used - one of them should be: Content-Type
Man, it took me a lot of time, but thanks to your help I solved it. As you wrote above, I went into DevTools, found 'Content-Type` after manual download and it was binary/octet-stream -> I put it into line profile.set_preference("browser.helperApps.neverAsk.saveToDisk", "CSV File,text/csv,application/vnd.ms-excel,application/octet-stream, binary/octet-stream") and it works perfectly. Once again, thanks a lot!
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I have been using the below logic and working for me in Java, you can easily port this to python.

FirefoxProfile profile = new FirefoxProfile();

        // set the download folder directory
        profile.setPreference("browser.download.dir", this.getDownloadFolderPath());

        // the last folder specified for a download
        profile.setPreference("browser.download.folderList", 2);

        // hide Download Manager window when a download begins
        profile.setPreference("browser.download.manager.showWhenStarting", false);

        /**
         This is the most important setting that will make sure the pdf is downloaded
         without any prompt
         */
        profile.setPreference("pdfjs.disabled", true);

        profile.setPreference("pref.downloads.disable_button.edit_actions", false);
        profile.setPreference("media.navigator.permission.disabled", true);

        // A comma-separated list of MIME types to save to disk without asking what to
        // use to open the file.
        profile.setPreference("browser.helperApps.neverAsk.saveToDisk",
                "application/pdf,application/msword, application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document, application/zip,text/csv,text/plain,application/x-msexcel,application/excel,application/x-excel,application/vnd.ms-excel,image/png,application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet;octet/stream");

        // A comma-separated list of MIME types to open directly without asking for
        // confirmation.
        profile.setPreference("browser.helperApps.neverAsk.openFile",
                "application/pdf,application/msword, application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document, application/zip,text/csv,text/plain,application/x-msexcel,application/excel,application/x-excel,application/vnd.ms-excel,image/png,application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet;octet/stream");

        // Do not ask what to do with an unknown MIME type
        profile.setPreference("browser.helperApps.alwaysAsk.force", false);

        // Leave the window in the background when starting a download (Default Setting
        // is false)
        profile.setPreference("browser.download.manager.focusWhenStarting", false);

        // popup window at bottom right corner of the screen will not appear once all
        // downloads are finished.
        profile.setPreference("browser.download.manager.showAlertOnComplete", true);

        // Close the Download Manager when all downloads are complete
        profile.setPreference("browser.download.manager.closeWhenDone", true);

        FirefoxOptions options = new FirefoxOptions();
        options.setProfile(profile);

Make sure to consume the options while creating the driver instance. And let me know if you are still facing the issue.

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1 Comment

Thank you, I checked it and worked. The problem was on my side, MIME which I was missing was: binary/octet-stream.

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