How to save and load cookies using Python + Selenium WebDriver

Question

How can I save all cookies in Python's Selenium WebDriver to a .txt file, and then load them later?

The documentation doesn't say much of anything about the getCookies function.

Answer 1

You can save the current cookies as a Python object using pickle. For example:

import pickle
import selenium.webdriver

driver = selenium.webdriver.Firefox()
driver.get("http://www.google.com")
pickle.dump(driver.get_cookies(), open("cookies.pkl", "wb"))

And later to add them back:

import pickle
import selenium.webdriver

driver = selenium.webdriver.Firefox()
driver.get("http://www.google.com")
cookies = pickle.load(open("cookies.pkl", "rb"))
for cookie in cookies:
    driver.add_cookie(cookie)

Answer 2

When you need cookies from session to session, there is another way to do it. Use the Chrome options user-data-dir in order to use folders as profiles. I run:

# You need to: from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options
chrome_options = Options()
chrome_options.add_argument("user-data-dir=selenium")
driver = webdriver.Chrome(options=chrome_options)
#for selenium 4.15.2 options instead of chrome_options
#driver = webdriver.Chrome(options=chrome_options) 
driver.get("www.google.com")

Here you can do the logins that check for human interaction. I do this and then the cookies I need now every time I start the Webdriver with that folder everything is in there. You can also manually install the Extensions and have them in every session.

The second time I run, all the cookies are there:

# You need to: from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options    
chrome_options = Options()
chrome_options.add_argument("user-data-dir=selenium") 
driver = webdriver.Chrome(options=chrome_options)
#for selenium 4.15.2 options instead of chrome_options
#driver = webdriver.Chrome(options=chrome_options) 
driver.get("www.google.com") # Now you can see the cookies, the settings, extensions, etc., and the logins done in the previous session are present here. 

The advantage is you can use multiple folders with different settings and cookies, Extensions without the need to load, unload cookies, install and uninstall Extensions, change settings, change logins via code, and thus no way to have the logic of the program break, etc.

Also, this is faster than having to do it all by code.

Answer 3

Remember, you can only add a cookie for the current domain.

If you want to add a cookie for your Google account, do

browser.get('http://google.com')
for cookie in cookies:
    browser.add_cookie(cookie)

Answer 4

Just a slight modification for the code written by Roel Van de Paar, as all credit goes to him. I am using this in Windows and it is working perfectly, both for setting and adding cookies:

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

chrome_options = Options()
chrome_options.add_argument("--user-data-dir=chrome-data")
driver = webdriver.Chrome('chromedriver.exe',options=chrome_options)
driver.get('https://web.whatsapp.com')  # Already authenticated
time.sleep(30)

Answer 5

Based on the answer by Eduard Florinescu, but with newer code and the missing imports added:

$ cat work-auth.py
#!/usr/bin/python3

# Setup:
# sudo apt-get install chromium-chromedriver
# sudo -H python3 -m pip install selenium

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

chrome_options = Options()
chrome_options.add_argument("--user-data-dir=chrome-data")
driver = webdriver.Chrome('/usr/bin/chromedriver',options=chrome_options)
chrome_options.add_argument("user-data-dir=chrome-data")
driver.get('https://www.somedomainthatrequireslogin.com')
time.sleep(30)  # Time to enter credentials
driver.quit()

$ cat work.py
#!/usr/bin/python3

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

chrome_options = Options()
chrome_options.add_argument("--user-data-dir=chrome-data")
driver = webdriver.Chrome('/usr/bin/chromedriver',options=chrome_options)
driver.get('https://www.somedomainthatrequireslogin.com')  # Already authenticated
time.sleep(10)
driver.quit()

Answer 6

This is a solution that saves the profile directory for Firefox.

The advantage of this solution compared to the top answer using driver.get_cookies() is that, apart from cookies, other data (localStorage, IndexedDB) are also stored, which would be useful because a few websites use them to persist the session.

The solution using Chrome's user-data-dir also keep the localStorage similar to this, but it uses Chrome instead of Firefox.

It was tested on Linux.

---

Ideally it would be better to not copy the directory in the first place, but this is very hard, see

• How to Prevent Selenium 3.0 (Geckodriver) from Creating Temporary Firefox Profiles?
• how do I use an existing profile in-place with Selenium Webdriver?

Also

• Can't use existing Firefox profile in Selenium WebDriver using C# (similar solution to the solution below)

---

Short version:

• To save the profile

driver.execute_script("window.close()")
time.sleep(0.5)
currentProfilePath = driver.capabilities["moz:profile"]
profileStoragePath = "/tmp/abc"
shutil.copytree(currentProfilePath, profileStoragePath,
                ignore_dangling_symlinks=True
                )

• To load the profile

driver = Firefox(executable_path="geckodriver-v0.28.0-linux64",
                 firefox_profile=FirefoxProfile(profileStoragePath)
                )

---

Long version (with demonstration that it works and a lot of explanation -- see comments in the code)

The code uses localStorage for demonstration, but it works with cookies as well.

#initial imports

from selenium.webdriver import Firefox, FirefoxProfile

import shutil
import os.path
import time

# Create a new profile

driver = Firefox(executable_path="geckodriver-v0.28.0-linux64",
                  # * I'm using this particular version. If yours is
                  # named "geckodriver" and placed in system PATH
                  # then this is not necessary
                )

# Navigate to an arbitrary page and set some local storage
driver.get("https://DuckDuckGo.com")
assert driver.execute_script(r"""{
        const tmp = localStorage.a; localStorage.a="1";
        return [tmp, localStorage.a]
    }""") == [None, "1"]

# Make sure that the browser writes the data to profile directory.
# Choose one of the below methods
if 0:
    # Wait for some time for Firefox to flush the local storage to disk.
    # It's a long time. I tried 3 seconds and it doesn't work.
    time.sleep(10)

elif 1:
    # Alternatively:
    driver.execute_script("window.close()")
    # NOTE: It might not work if there are multiple windows!

    # Wait for a bit for the browser to clean up
    # (shutil.copytree might throw some weird error if the source directory changes while copying)
    time.sleep(0.5)

else:
    pass
    # I haven't been able to find any other, more elegant way.
    #`close()` and `quit()` both delete the profile directory


# Copy the profile directory (must be done BEFORE driver.quit()!)
currentProfilePath = driver.capabilities["moz:profile"]
assert os.path.isdir(currentProfilePath)
profileStoragePath = "/tmp/abc"
try:
    shutil.rmtree(profileStoragePath)
except FileNotFoundError:
    pass

shutil.copytree(currentProfilePath, profileStoragePath,
                ignore_dangling_symlinks=True # There's a lock file in the
                                              # profile directory that symlinks
                                              # to some IP address + port
               )

driver.quit()
assert not os.path.isdir(currentProfilePath)
# Selenium cleans up properly if driver.quit() is called,
# but not necessarily if the object is destructed


# Now reopen it with the old profile

driver=Firefox(executable_path="geckodriver-v0.28.0-linux64",
               firefox_profile=FirefoxProfile(profileStoragePath)
              )

# Note that the profile directory is **copied** -- see FirefoxProfile documentation
assert driver.profile.path!=profileStoragePath
assert driver.capabilities["moz:profile"]!=profileStoragePath

# Confusingly...
assert driver.profile.path!=driver.capabilities["moz:profile"]
# And only the latter is updated.
# To save it again, use the same method as previously mentioned

# Check the data is still there

driver.get("https://DuckDuckGo.com")

data = driver.execute_script(r"""return localStorage.a""")
assert data=="1", data

driver.quit()

assert not os.path.isdir(driver.capabilities["moz:profile"])
assert not os.path.isdir(driver.profile.path)

---

What doesn't work:

• Initialize Firefox(capabilities={"moz:profile": "/path/to/directory"}) -- the driver will not be able to connect.
• options=Options(); options.add_argument("profile"); options.add_argument("/path/to/directory"); Firefox(options=options) -- same as above.

Answer 7

Try this method:

import pickle
from selenium import webdriver
driver = webdriver.Chrome(executable_path="chromedriver.exe")
URL = "SITE URL"
driver.get(URL)
sleep(10)
if os.path.exists('cookies.pkl'):
    cookies = pickle.load(open("cookies.pkl", "rb"))
    for cookie in cookies:
        driver.add_cookie(cookie)
    driver.refresh()
    sleep(5)
# check if still need login
# if yes:
# write login code
# when login success save cookies using
pickle.dump(driver.get_cookies(), open("cookies.pkl", "wb"))

Answer 8

This is code I used in Windows. It works.

for item in COOKIES.split(';'):
    name,value = item.split('=', 1)
    name=name.replace(' ', '').replace('\r', '').replace('\n', '')
    value = value.replace(' ', '').replace('\r', '').replace('\n', '')
    cookie_dict={
            'name':name,
            'value':value,
            "domain": "",  # Google Chrome
            "expires": "",
            'path': '/',
            'httpOnly': False,
            'HostOnly': False,
            'Secure': False
        }
    self.driver_.add_cookie(cookie_dict)

Answer 9

Use this code to store the login session of any website like google facebook etc

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options
import undetected_chromedriver as uc
options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
options.add_argument("user-data-dir=C:/Users/salee/AppData/Local/Google/Chrome/User Data/Profile 1")
browser = uc.Chrome(use_subprocess=True,Options=options)

Answer 10

For my case, the accepted answer is almost there.

For people that have no luck with the answers above, you are welcome to try my way.

Before you start coding, make sure that the website is using cookies for authentication.

Step:

1. Open your browser (I am using chrome here), login to your website.
2. Go to this website in order to know how to check the value of the cookies
3. Open another browser in incognito mode and go to your website (at this stage, your website should still prompt you the login page)
4. Try to modify the cookies value with the first browser cookies's value accordingly (your first browser must authenticated to your website)
5. Refresh your incognito mode browser, it should by pass the login page

The steps above is how I used to make sure adding cookies can authenticate to my website.

Now is the coding part, it is almost the same as the accepted answer. The only problem for me with the accepted answer is that I ended up having double the numbers of my cookies.

The pickle.dump part has no issue for me, so I would straight to the add cookie part.

import pickle
import selenium.webdriver

driver = selenium.webdriver.Chrome()
driver.get("http://your.website.com")

cookies = pickle.load(open("cookies.pkl", "rb"))
# the reason that I delete the cookies is because I found duplicated cookies by inspect the cookies with browser like step 2
driver.delete_all_cookies()

for cookie in cookies:
    driver.add_cookie(cookie)

driver.refresh()

You are able to use step 2 to check if the cookies you add with the code is working correctly.

Hope it helps.

Answer 11

Most of the answers here are about pickling the cookies, I tried it and it didn't work properly. you can simply store the cookies() response in a text file and load it when you need it.

Go to the website and login or do other cookie related activities

from selenium import webdriver
driver = webdriver.Chrome()
driver.get("https://google.com")

Store the cookie

with open("cookies.txt", "r") as f:
    cookies = eval(f.read())

to test it, close and reopen the driver and load the cookie

driver.quit()
driver = webdriver.Chrome()
driver.get("https://google.com")

Load the cookie

for cookie in cookies:
    driver.add_cookie(cookie)

refresh to reflect the change

driver.refresh()

Answer 12

None of the answers here solved my problem so I figured that I would share the method that I discovered that ended up being my solution.

Of course, you need to first save your session cookies:

def get_cookies(self):
    cookies = {}
    selenium_cookies = self.driver.get_cookies()
    for cookie in selenium_cookies:
        cookies[cookie['name']] = cookie['value']
    return cookies
def dump_cookies(self, output_file_path: str):
    cookies = self.get_cookies()
    with open(output_file_path, 'w') as f:
        json.dump(cookies, f)
    self.debug_print(f'Saved cookies to: {output_file_path}')

It is usually enough to simply load those cookies and then refresh the page:

def load_cookies(self, path):
    with open(path) as f:
        cookies = json.load(f)
    for key, value in cookies.items():
        self.driver.add_cookie({'name': key, 'value': value})

But in my case, I also had to save the local storage ... :

def save_storage(self):
    local_storage = self.driver.execute_script(
        "var items = {}, ls = window.localStorage; for (var i = 0; i < ls.length; i++)  items[ls.key(i)] = ls.getItem(ls.key(i)); return items;")
    with open("data/local_storage.json", "w") as f:
        json.dump(local_storage, f)

And then to load that storage in your fresh session:

def load_storage(self):
    with open("data/local_storage.json", "r") as f:
        local_storage = json.load(f)
    for key, value in local_storage.items():
        self.driver.execute_script(f"window.localStorage.setItem('{key}', '{value}')")

Quick recap:

1. Load selenium, navigate to your site that requires auth.
2. Run dump_cookies and save_storage to save the session data to disc.
3. Close the current session
4. Load a new session, navigate to that same site again.
5. Run load_cookies and load_storage and then driver.refresh() to refresh the page.
6. Hopefully you will now be logged in. If not, try running driver.delete_all_cookies() before loading the cookies, as this will clear any cookies that the site may have set before you loaded the login cookies. This was not necessary for me.

Answer 13

For OS = Mac OS Ventura; Python = 3.10.4; SE = 4.12.0, check out this one that I was able to test very recently Connecting to an Edge Session and profile

Answer 14

Well pretty much all answers work kind of
The problems are due to the inner works of how each site accepts a cookie
I had a similar case where I had a "correct" cookie but it wouldn't get accepted. I was sure that everything was fine but.
So I investigated the cookie and I saw it has an expriry field pointing that it was usable till an hour before I started my bot.
The solution is to check this - or maybe some other field - and make appropriate changes.
Here is my quick and dirty solution

def load_cookies(driver, file_path="cookies.json"):
    with open(file_path, "r") as file:
        cookies = json.load(file)
        df = pd.DataFrame(cookies)
        if datetime.fromtimestamp(df['expiry'].min()) < datetime.now():
            print("The cookie has expired")
            return False
    for cookie in cookies:
        # Remove 'sameSite' attribute if present
        if 'sameSite' in cookie:
            del cookie['sameSite']
        driver.add_cookie(cookie)
        return True