Cypress: Add support for changing path to the downloads folder in cypress configuration

[joszo]

Hello,

could you add to the configuration something like:

downloadFolder: cypress/download

Normally it's downloaded to the /Users/username/Downloads/fileName.example but I want to make it more elastic for other people which after running the tests, doesn't have to change path to the downloads.

[jennifer-shehane]

Normally it's downloaded to the /Users/username/Downloads/fileName.example

Could you be more specific about what 'it' is here? What is downloading to this path? Are you talking about downloading Cypress?

[joszo]

I'm running test in cypress which downloads the file.
Now it's downloaded to the /Users/${username}/Downloads/ folder.
After that, I would like to verify if the file exists in the system, and then I want to delete the file.

I think a nice feature would be that users could specify where the file should be downloaded. For example .../cypress/download. Do you get an idea?

[dannynicolas]

I think joszo may mean Setting the default download folder to a specific path. There's quite a bit of past-history when doing this using chrome headless and selenium, so there might be some additional research to do.

[joszo]

This is exactly what I meant :)

In Protractor there was something like that:

var path = require('path');
var downloadsPath = path.resolve(__dirname, './downloads');
................
'chromeOptions': {
           prefs: {
            download: {
              'prompt_for_download': false,
              'default_directory': downloadsPath
            }
          }
        }

And then we could specify the default folder to the cypress folder, so we could easier verify files, delete them or whatever we want to do with them.

So far I created some workaround for my purpose:

module.exports = (on, config) => {
    on('task', {
        deleteFile(fileName) {
            const fs = require('fs');
            const userName = require('os').userInfo().username;
            const downloadPath = `/Users/${userName}/Downloads/`;
            const absolutePath = downloadPath + fileName;
            const fileStats = fs.statSync(absolutePath);
            const fileSize = fileStats.size;

            if (fs.existsSync(absolutePath) && fileSize > 0) {
                try {
                    fs.unlinkSync(absolutePath);
                    console.log('File deleted');
                    return null;
                } catch (err) {
                    console.log(err);
                }
            }
            console.log('File is not exists');
            return null;
        }
    });
};

And usage looks like that:

cy.task('deleteFile', `${fileName}.pdf`)

I know that is not beautiful... but I'm not sure how it would behave on CI etc... 😢

[jennifer-shehane]

Thanks for clarifying! This feature is duplicate of a requirement of this issue: https://github.com/cypress-io/cypress/issues/949 You may find some better workarounds in that thread too.

[natejcho]

This issue is not a duplicate, the referenced ticket above focusses on the download dialogue, and only mentions changing the download location.

Still having issue in changing the default location

[joszo]

@natejcho this is exactly what I had in mind :)

[pwagh88]

I am also facing the same issue as specified by @joszo
Once the file is downloaded, need to verify if the file exists in the system

[natejcho]

https://github.com/cypress-io/cypress/issues/949#issuecomment-522586382

I replied in this thread my working solution.

[CuriousSoul230]

@joszo https://github.com/cypress-io/cypress/issues/4675#issuecomment-510656882
Your comment mentioned in the above link was useful to me. Trying to implement it but were you successful in implementing this in CI?

[joszo]

@joszo #4675 (comment)
Your comment mentioned in the above link was useful to me. Trying to implement it but were you successful in implementing this in CI?

I will try tomorrow to run that solution in the CI, and I will inform you @CuriousSoul230

[natejcho]

@joszo #4675 (comment)
Your comment mentioned in the above link was useful to me. Trying to implement it but were you successful in implementing this in CI?

This runs fine in our pipeline.

Our stack uses Docker and gitlab. we export the downloads as an artifact

[CuriousSoul230]

@joszo @natejcho

const downloadPath = `/Users/${userName}/Downloads/

Is the above statement working for you? I am getting the below error :(

cy.readFile("/Users/root/Downloads/Task1.json") failed because the file does not exist at the following path: /Users/root/Downloads/Task1.json

[CuriousSoul230]

@natejcho In your case do you set the path were the file is downloaded. I need to read the file and assert on some values before deleting them.

[joszo]

@joszo @natejcho
const downloadPath = `/Users/${userName}/Downloads/
Is the above statement working for you? I am getting the below error :(
cy.readFile("/Users/root/Downloads/Task1.json") failed because the file does not exist at the following path: /Users/root/Downloads/Task1.json

I think the problem will also occur if you will try to run tests in headless mode locally npx cypress run , because the browser tries to open pop up for confirmation of the save.

In free time I will try to figure out how to solve it, the solution which comes to mind is like @natejcho mentioned use docker (probably they use it with XVFB, so the tests are run in the CI in GUI mode).

Maybe I'm wrong... In the meantime, there is a nice article about using cypress with docker: https://www.cypress.io/blog/2019/05/02/run-cypress-with-a-single-docker-command/

[CuriousSoul230]

https://github.com/cypress-io/cypress/issues/4675#issuecomment-584604623
Locally in headless mode I am not facing any issue, since the browser setting prevents pop up for confirmation of the save. I am not sure the behavior in the runners. We are also using Gitlab and Docker. Only if I can somehow find the actual downloadPath in Runners.

[joszo]

#4675 (comment)
Locally in headless mode I am not facing any issue, since the browser setting prevents pop up for confirmation of the save.

how did you avoid that pop up - https://github.com/cypress-io/cypress/issues/5651 in this issue we have example of pop up.

[CuriousSoul230]

@joszo
I am running in chrome headless mode which as u mentioned earlier is in XVFB and runs in GUI mode. In my local ,the browser settings>advanced>downloads has the setting 'Ask where to save each file before downloading' disabled. That is preventing the pop up. But I dont know how it is behaving in CI runners.

[natejcho]

@joszo @natejcho
const downloadPath = `/Users/${userName}/Downloads/
Is the above statement working for you? I am getting the below error :(
cy.readFile("/Users/root/Downloads/Task1.json") failed because the file does not exist at the following path: /Users/root/Downloads/Task1.json

in my solution above, the download will save relative to the project root directory so
My-Project/plzDownload.json

[natejcho]

#4675 (comment)
Locally in headless mode I am not facing any issue, since the browser setting prevents pop up for confirmation of the save.

how did you avoid that pop up - #5651 in this issue we have example of pop up.

in the solution I posted https://github.com/cypress-io/cypress/issues/949#issuecomment-522586382 you intercept the download. Attach the contents of the download to an a tag, read the raw html for the byte string (or whatever format you choose) and then write that to a file in your project directory.
Doing all this will never trigger the download confirm popup because as far as your browser is concerned, you never actually download anything

[ris314]

I faced this today and found the formal docs extremely helpful:
https://docs.cypress.io/api/plugins/browser-launch-api.html#Change-download-directory

[gowrishyadalam]

@ris314, I changed the download folder as u suggested in the previous comment, that code works fine with chrome browser, but I am getting an error while I am running test cases in electron browser
Below is error response

Cannot set property 'download' of undefined
TypeError: Cannot set property 'download' of `undefined`

[egretsRegrets]

@ris314, I changed the download folder as u suggested in the previous comment, that code works fine with chrome browser, but I am getting an error while I am running test cases in electron browser
Below is error response

Cannot set property 'download' of undefined
TypeError: Cannot set property 'download' of `undefined`

Changing the download directory as suggested by the docs plugin example(https://docs.cypress.io/api/plugins/browser-launch-api.html#Change-download-directory) works for me when running with chrome. However, I'm seeing 'TypeError: Cannot set property 'download' of undefined' when running headless with electron (default).

[jennifer-shehane]

Yeah, I think the options have to be different for Electron (sigh). I'll update the docs example. https://github.com/cypress-io/cypress-documentation/pull/2971

I'm thinking this is not going to be configurable in Electron as is so you'll want to run cypress run --browser chrome.