How To Open A Web Browser In Python

Opening a web browser is a common task while working with web applications and automation. In this tutorial, we’ll see how to open a web browser in Python using the webbrowser module.

The webbrowser module provides a high-level interface to allow displaying of Web-based documents to the users. It comes in-built with Python, which means you don’t need to install any additional packages.

Step 1: Importing the webbrowser module

To start with, you need to import the webbrowser module, which is a standard Python module. Simply use the import statement as shown below:

Step 2: Opening a URL in the default web browser

Next, you can open a URL in the default web browser using the webbrowser.open() function. The webbrowser.open() function accepts the URL as a parameter and returns True if the operation is successful, otherwise, it returns False. Here’s an example to demonstrate the opening of a URL:

Step 3: Opening a URL in a new window or tab

You can also open a URL in a new window or a new tab of the web browser. By passing the optional new parameter to the webbrowser.open() function, you can control the behavior. The following table shows the meaning of different new parameter values:

newMeaning
0Open the URL in the same browser window if possible.
1Open the URL in a new browser window, if possible.
2Open the URL in a new browser tab, if possible.

Here’s an example to demonstrate the opening of a URL in a new browser tab:

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we have learned how to open a web browser in Python using the webbrowser module. We have also seen how to open a URL in the same browser window, a new window, or a new tab. This can be useful for automating tasks that involve browsing the web or automatically opening web pages based on certain conditions.