pythonseleniumbrowserselenium-webdriverincognito-mode

Python/Selenium incognito/private mode


I can not seem to find any documentation on how to make Selenium open the browser in incognito mode.

Do I have to setup a custom profile in the browser or?


Solution

  • First of all, since selenium by default starts up a browser with a clean, brand-new profile, you are actually already browsing privately. Referring to:


    But you can strictly enforce/turn on incognito/private mode anyway.

    For chrome pass --incognito command-line argument:

    --incognito Causes the browser to launch directly in incognito mode.

    from selenium import webdriver
    
    chrome_options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
    chrome_options.add_argument("--incognito")
    
    driver = webdriver.Chrome(chrome_options=chrome_options)
    driver.get('https://google.com')
    

    FYI, here is what it would open up:

    happy holidays!

    For firefox, set browser.privatebrowsing.autostart to True:

    from selenium import webdriver
    
    firefox_profile = webdriver.FirefoxProfile()
    firefox_profile.set_preference("browser.privatebrowsing.autostart", True)
    
    driver = webdriver.Firefox(firefox_profile=firefox_profile)
    

    FYI, this corresponds to the following checkbox in settings:

    enter image description here