How To Use Selenium Without Opening Browser Python

In this tutorial, we will learn how to use Selenium without opening a browser using Python. Selenium is a powerful tool for controlling a web browser through the program. It is functional and widely used for both testing and web scraping.

However, it can be inconvenient to have the web browser open and sometimes it might even slow down your computer. To solve this issue, we can use Selenium with a headless browser, which means running a web browser in the background without displaying it.

Step 1: Install Selenium and WebDriver

First, the Python package manager “pip” can be used to install Selenium. Open your command prompt or terminal, and type the following command:

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pip install selenium

To use Selenium with a headless browser, we need to install a WebDriver. We will be using Google Chrome in this tutorial, so you will need to download and install the Chrome WebDriver. You can find the latest version of the Chrome WebDriver here. Make sure to download the version corresponding to your installed Chrome version.

After downloading and unpacking the zip file, remember the path to the “chromedriver” executable. You’ll need it later in the script.

Step 2: Import Necessary Packages

In your Python script, import the following packages:

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from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options

Step 3: Setup Headless Browser Options

To run Chrome in a headless mode, you need to specify this option using the Chrome Options Object.

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chrome_options = Options()
chrome_options.add_argument("--headless")

Step 4: Initialize WebDriver with Headless Options

Now we can initialize the WebDriver by specifying the Chrome WebDriver’s executable path and the options we’ve created.

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driver_path = "/path/to/chromedriver"
 
# Replace this with the actual path to the downloaded Chrome WebDriver executable
driver = webdriver.Chrome(executable_path=driver_path, options=chrome_options)

Step 5: Use Selenium Functions as Usual

Now you can use Selenium functions as you usually do, and the browser will not open or display on the screen.

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driver.get("https://www.example.com/")
print(driver.title)

Full Code

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from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options
 
chrome_options = Options()
chrome_options.add_argument("--headless")
 
driver_path = "/path/to/chromedriver" # Replace this with the actual path to the downloaded Chrome WebDriver executable
driver = webdriver.Chrome(executable_path=driver_path, options=chrome_options)
 
driver.get("https://www.example.com/")
print(driver.title)

Output

Example Domain

Now you have successfully learned how to use Selenium without opening a browser with Python. This allows for more efficient and less intrusive web scraping or testing of web applications. Always remember to close the WebDriver instance properly once you have finished your task by calling driver.quit(). This ensures that the browser process is terminated and prevents any memory leaks.