upload to google photos by selenium

Question

google photos doesn't have <input type ='file'>. It only appears when pressing the upload button => computer. Then, It will appear under the body tag. Here is the input code:

<input type="file" multiple="" style="display: none" jsname="G1bupd" accept=".3fr,.3gp,.arw,.avi,.cr2,.cr3,.crw,.dc2,.dcr,.dng,.erf,.heic,.jpeg,.k25,.kdc,.mdc,.mef,.mkv,.mos,.mov,.mrw,.mts,.nef,.nrw,.orf,.pef,.qtk,.raf,.raw,.rdc,.rw2,.sr2,.srf,.webp,.x3f,image/bmp,image/gif,image/jpeg,image/png,image/tiff,image/webp,video/mp4,video/x-m4v,video/*" jsaction="change:.CLIENT">

That seems to be angularjs. The problem is it shows up file input dialog when pressing upload => computer. I don't want this

My idea is to manually create the above input line and don't press the upload button. Then send_keys. But it failed.

Another way is to use the autoit dll to interact with the input dialog file. But this is not optimal

What causes my idea to fail? How to fix this. Hope everybody help please

Answer 1

I looked at photos and you should just be able to use the below. You do not need to click Upload > Computer. Just send the call.

  driver.FindElement(By.Xpath("//input[@type='file']").SendKeys(@"C:\my\file.jpg"));

Answer 2

3 years later I found myself on this post trying the same thing. The previous answer by Dazed would typically work, but in this case it needs a bit of modification.

When the page loads do the following (source):

driver.execute_script(
    "HTMLInputElement.prototype.click = function() {                     " +
    "  if(this.type !== 'file') HTMLElement.prototype.click.call(this);  " +
    "};     

(sorry it's in Python not Java)

Now press the upload > computer button on the page that would usually open the dialog. And afterwards search for the input element (as in Dazed's answer):

upload_computer_button.click()
time.sleep(5)

file_input = driver.find_element(By.XPATH, "//input[@type='file']")

Now you may need to change the display property of the element:

driver.execute_script("arguments[0].style.display = 'block';", file_input)
time.sleep(1)

And then send the files:

file_input.send_keys(file_path)

What Google usually does: When the button is pressed, JS code runs that (1) somehow enables the hidden <input> element, then (2) triggers a click event on it causing the file dialog to open.

The code above runs the Google's JS code but overrides the click handler on the <input> element so the fake click event doesn't open a dialog. But the element has still been enabled so then sending the file paths works. How Google actually does the enabling/disabling of the element is beyond me ‍♂️ .. but this way it doesn't matter

(Also: If you want to upload multiple files, put them in file_path separated by \n)