Wise Owl Answers - Is it Possible to Start Chrome Hidden using Selenium in VBA?

This video shows you how to run Headless Chrome, or an invisible Chrome window, using Selenium in Excel VBA. Learn how to add the headless argument when you start the Chrome browser. You'll also see why headless Chrome isn't useful if you need to download files.

Chapters
00:00 The Question
01:05 Getting a Table from a Webpage
03:26 Running Headless Chrome
04:35 Downloading a File with Chrome Visible
06:50 Downloading Files Doesn't Work in Headless Chrome

[MyAudioBookCompilation]

Still the most outstanding channel for me. I have been introducing Mr. Andrew to my students and told them that he is one of my best teachers. More power to you sir.

[alexandrumarcel]

For anyone wondering, if you want to use Chrome in headless mode to download files you need to set the below options to your ChromeDriver before launching the Chrome session (Get or Start):

IE.SetPreference "download.default_directory", exportFolderPath
IE.SetPreference "download.directory_upgrade", True
IE.SetPreference "download.prompt_for_download", False
IE.SetPreference "safebrowsing.enabled", True
IE.SetPreference "plugins.plugins_disabled", Array("Chrome PDF Viewer")
IE.SetPreference "download.setdownloadbehaviour", "allow"
IE.AddArgument "--headless"

Where "exportFolderPath" variable is a string that is containing the PATH (make sure that is ended by the application.pathSeparator) to a separate folder than "Download" (this is not working if the destination for your files is "Download" folder)

[hadibq]

wow just knew about this selenium. Thanks for sharing 👍 cheers!

[haky]

quite useful, thanks for your sharing on this.

[BogdanDonescu]

Hi Andrew! First of all I want to congratulate you for the outstanding job you do and the great teaching method you have.
Please tell us if there is a way to get rid of the "This type of file can harm your computer. Do you want to keep [it] anyway?" Chrome warning when we try to download a file (xml) using selenium? Thank you for everything! Keep them coming!

[basavaputta]

Please make a video on how to set the download path and disable the save password popup in Google Chrome.

If this video has already been created, kindly share the link as it would be incredibly helpful.

[markvalenzuela]

Hi Andrew! do you have a video for downloading file using selenium ? Thank you for this tutorials!

[trading]

Both cd.AddArgument ("--incognito") and cd.AddArgument ("--headless") don't work anymore with the latest Crome driver update. I see emptly white browser screen.

[rolandtobiasz]

The previous reply didn't work but I found another solution using Powershell and curl.exe, which are by default installed in Windows 10. After Set lnk = add the following line, changing the download folder to your needs: "Powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass cd C:\Users\rolan\Downloads; curl.exe -LO " & lnk.Attribute("href"). It's not ideal but it is a workaround.

[chasing_world_records]

Is it possible to do this with Edge? I tried the code (with EdgeDriver), but the page opens normally. I just want to scrape the page NOT download a file. I searched but haven't found a definitive answer (or anything that works) on the web.

[Telugu_Quote_Quiz_Corner]

How to add chromeOptions to driver in vba please can you do one video on this topic.

[jhovaniealvarez]

Hello. First of all, I want to thank you for all the time and effort you put into these wonderful tutorials. Your videos have helped me tons.
Now my question: what about headless Chromium Edge? Is it possible? I have seen some comments on the web that state that it is not supported. If not supported, can it at least be started minimized?

[sivacoumarj]

Hi, Want to save a webpage as PDF to a specific folder in Chrome using Excel VBA

[jmavioso]

Great content!
But can you reuse a already opened Chrome window?

[francescot.neruda]

Hello mythical! is it possible to start visible chrome and only after pieces of code hide it?
Now have you been able to download files in Headless Chrome ?

[kangamo]

Click not working in chrome hidden

any solution?

[jnblnr]

is it possible to translate the web page (edge, chrome browser) via vba code?

[SasiKumar-teir]

Hi Sir, can you pls advise how to access already opened chrome browser using vba..

[shaileshsharma]

Is there any way I Target if my web page is already open

[JuanThomasAlvarez]

This did not work for Edge Driver of SeleniumBasic.