how to switch download directory using selenium / firefox / python?

Question

I know this question has been asked before...but I've tried multiple approaches and for some reason anything I download from the driver keeps going to my Downloads folder.

Basically I navigate to a website and download something by clicking a download link like so:

result.click()

This downloads the file fine. But I want to download it to a specific directory. I've tried doing these approaches to change the download directory:

driver = webdriver.Firefox()
profile = webdriver.FirefoxProfile()

driver.command_executor._commands["SET_CONTEXT"] = ("POST", "/session/$sessionId/moz/context")
driver.execute("SET_CONTEXT", {"context": "chrome"})
driver.execute_script("""
  Services.prefs.setBoolPref('browser.download.useDownloadDir', true);
  Services.prefs.setStringPref('browser.download.dir', arguments[0]);
  """, directory)

driver.execute("SET_CONTEXT", {"context": "content"})

and

profile.set_preference("browser.download.folderList", 2)
profile.set_preference("browser.download.manager.showWhenStarting", False)
profile.set_preference("browser.download.dir", directory)
profile.set_preference("browser.helperApps.neverAsk.saveToDisk", "application/x-gzip")

Where directory is my desired location.

Neither of these worked...can anyone explain why or show me how to actually achieve this?

Thanks

Answer 1

As of 2021 the FirefoxProfile class used in earlier answers is deprecated, for the new selenium.webdriver.firefox.options.Options:

from selenium.webdriver.firefox.options import Options

options = Options()
options.set_preference("browser.download.folderList", 2)
options.set_preference("browser.download.manager.showWhenStarting", False)
options.set_preference("browser.download.dir", "./downloads")
options.set_preference("browser.helperApps.neverAsk.saveToDisk", "application/x-gzip")

driver = webdriver.Firefox(options=options)