Python: use cookie to login with Selenium

Question

What I want to do is to open a page (for example youtube) and be automatically logged in, like when I manually open it in the browser.

From what I've understood, I have to use cookies, the problem is that I can't understand how.

I tried to download youtube cookies with this:

driver = webdriver.Firefox(executable_path="driver/geckodriver.exe")
driver.get("https://www.youtube.com/")
print(driver.get_cookies())

And what I get is:

{'name': 'VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE', 'value': 'EDkAwwhbDKQ', 'path': '/', 'domain': '.youtube.com', 'expiry': None, 'secure': False, 'httpOnly': True}

So what cookie do I have to load to automatically log in?

Answer 1

You can use pickle to save cookies as text file and load it later:

def save_cookie(driver, path):
    with open(path, 'wb') as filehandler:
        pickle.dump(driver.get_cookies(), filehandler)

def load_cookie(driver, path):
     with open(path, 'rb') as cookiesfile:
         cookies = pickle.load(cookiesfile)
         for cookie in cookies:
             driver.add_cookie(cookie)

Answer 2

I would advise in using json format, because the cookies are inherently dictionaries and lists. Otherwise this is the approved answer.

import json

def save_cookie(driver, path):
    with open(path, 'w') as filehandler:
        json.dump(driver.get_cookies(), filehandler)

def load_cookie(driver, path):
    with open(path, 'r') as cookiesfile:
        cookies = json.load(cookiesfile)
    for cookie in cookies:
        driver.add_cookie(cookie)

Answer 3

I had a scenario where I would like to reuse once authenticated/logged-in sessions. I'm using multiple browser simultaneously.

I've tried plenty of solutions from blogs and StackOverflow answers.

1. Using user-data-dir and profile-directory

These chrome options which solves purpose if you opening one browser at a time, but if you open multiple windows it'll throw an error saying user data directory is already in use.

2. Using cookies

Cookies can be shared across multiple browsers. Code available in SO answers are have most of the important blocks on how to use cookies in selenium. Here I'm extending those solutions to complete the flow.

Code

# selenium-driver.py
import pickle
from selenium import webdriver


class SeleniumDriver(object):
    def __init__(
        self,
        # chromedriver path
        driver_path='/Users/username/work/chrome/chromedriver',
        # pickle file path to store cookies
        cookies_file_path='/Users/username/work/chrome/cookies.pkl',
        # list of websites to reuse cookies with
        cookies_websites=["https://facebook.com"]

    ):
        self.driver_path = driver_path
        self.cookies_file_path = cookies_file_path
        self.cookies_websites = cookies_websites
        chrome_options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
        self.driver = webdriver.Chrome(
            executable_path=self.driver_path,
            options=chrome_options
        )
        try:
            # load cookies for given websites
            cookies = pickle.load(open(self.cookies_file_path, "rb"))
            for website in self.cookies_websites:
                self.driver.get(website)
                for cookie in cookies:
                    self.driver.add_cookie(cookie)
                self.driver.refresh()
        except Exception as e:
            # it'll fail for the first time, when cookie file is not present
            print(str(e))
            print("Error loading cookies")

    def save_cookies(self):
        # save cookies
        cookies = self.driver.get_cookies()
        pickle.dump(cookies, open(self.cookies_file_path, "wb"))

    def close_all(self):
        # close all open tabs
        if len(self.driver.window_handles) < 1:
            return
        for window_handle in self.driver.window_handles[:]:
            self.driver.switch_to.window(window_handle)
            self.driver.close()

    def quit(self):
        self.save_cookies()
        self.close_all()


def is_fb_logged_in():
    driver.get("https://facebook.com")
    if 'Facebook – log in or sign up' in driver.title:
        return False
    else:
        return True


def fb_login(username, password):
    username_box = driver.find_element_by_id('email')
    username_box.send_keys(username)

    password_box = driver.find_element_by_id('pass')
    password_box.send_keys(password)

    login_box = driver.find_element_by_id('loginbutton')
    login_box.click()


if __name__ == '__main__':
    """
    Run  - 1
    First time authentication and save cookies

    Run  - 2
    Reuse cookies and use logged-in session
    """
    selenium_object = SeleniumDriver()
    driver = selenium_object.driver
    username = "fb-username"
    password = "fb-password"

    if is_fb_logged_in(driver):
        print("Already logged in")
    else:
        print("Not logged in. Login")
        fb_login(username, password)

    selenium_object.quit()

Run 1: Login & Save Cookies

$ python selenium-driver.py
[Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/Users/username/work/chrome/cookies.pkl'
Error loading cookies
Not logged in. Login

This will open facebook login window and enter username-password to login. Once logged-in it'll close the browser and save cookies.

Run 2: Reuse cookies to continue loggedin session

$ python selenium-driver.py
Already logged in

This will open logged in session of facebook using stored cookies.

Requirements

• Python 3.7
• Selenium Webdriver
• Pickle

Answer 4

Here is one possible solution

import pickle
from selenium import webdriver

def save_cookie(driver):
    with open("cookie", 'wb') as filehandler:
        pickle.dump(driver.get_cookies(), filehandler)
def load_cookie(driver):
     with open("cookie", 'rb') as cookiesfile:
         cookies = pickle.load(cookiesfile)
         for cookie in cookies:
             print(cookie)
             driver.add_cookie(cookie)

driver = webdriver.Chrome(ChromeDriverManager().install())
url = 'https://www.Youtube.com'
driver.get(url)
#first try to login and generate cookies after that you can use cookies to login eveytime 
load_cookie(driver)
# Do you task here 
save_cookie(driver)
driver.quit()

Answer 5

try this, there is a method to add cookie to your driver session

http://selenium-python.readthedocs.io/api.html#selenium.webdriver.remote.webdriver.WebDriver.add_cookie

Answer 6

I ever met the same issue. Finally I use the chromeoptions to fix this issue instead of cookie file.

    import getpass

    chrome_options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
    chrome_options.add_argument("user-data-dir=C:\\Users\\"+getpass.getuser()+"\\AppData\\Local\\Google\\Chrome\\User Data\\Default")  # this is the directory for the cookies

    driver = webdriver.Chrome(chrome_options=chrome_options)
    driver.get(url)