Message: 'chromedriver' executable needs to be in PATH

# Table of Contents

1. Message: 'chromedriver' executable needs to be in PATH
2. Message: session not created: This version of ChromeDriver only supports Chrome version 102

# Message: 'chromedriver' executable needs to be in PATH

To solve the Selenium error "WebDriverException: Message: 'chromedriver' executable needs to be in PATH", install and import the webdriver-manager module by running pip install webdriver-manager.

The module simplifies management of binary drivers for different browsers.

# Install the webdriver-manager module

Open your terminal in your project's root directory and install the webdriver-manager module.

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# 👇️ In a virtual environment or using Python 2
pip install webdriver-manager

# 👇️ For python 3 (could also be pip3.10 depending on your version)
pip3 install webdriver-manager

# 👇️ If you get a permissions error
sudo pip3 install webdriver-manager

# 👇️ If you don't have pip in your PATH environment variable
python -m pip install webdriver-manager

# 👇️ For python 3 (could also be pip3.10 depending on your version)
python3 -m pip install webdriver-manager

# 👇️ For Anaconda
conda install -c conda-forge webdriver-manager

After you install the webdriver-manager package, you can import it and use it as follows.

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# ✅ for selenium version 4
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.service import Service as ChromeService
from webdriver_manager.chrome import ChromeDriverManager

driver = webdriver.Chrome(service=ChromeService(
    ChromeDriverManager().install()))

driver.get("http://www.python.org")

driver.close()

The code sample above should be used for selenium version 4.

If you use selenium version 3, use the following code sample instead.

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# ✅ for selenium version 3
from selenium import webdriver
from webdriver_manager.chrome import ChromeDriverManager

driver = webdriver.Chrome(ChromeDriverManager().install())


driver.get("http://www.python.org")

driver.close()

If you need to check your selenium version, issue the pip show selenium command.

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pip show selenium
pip3 show selenium

# Using the webdriver-manager package with Chromium

The example shows how to use the webdriver-manager module with the Chrome browser, but it can be used with all other browsers as well.

Here is an example that uses the module with Chromium.

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# ✅ for selenium 4
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.service import Service as ChromiumService
from webdriver_manager.chrome import ChromeDriverManager
from webdriver_manager.core.utils import ChromeType

driver = webdriver.Chrome(service=ChromiumService(
    ChromeDriverManager(chrome_type=ChromeType.CHROMIUM).install()))


driver.get("http://www.python.org")

driver.close()

And here is an example that runs the Chromium browser for selenium version 3.

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from selenium import webdriver
from webdriver_manager.chrome import ChromeDriverManager
from webdriver_manager.core.utils import ChromeType

driver = webdriver.Chrome(ChromeDriverManager(
    chrome_type=ChromeType.CHROMIUM).install())


driver.get("http://www.python.org")

driver.close()

You can view examples of how to use the webdriver-manager module with all other browsers in the official pypi page.

If you decide to not use the module, you have to download the binary for the drivers, unzip them on your PC and set the path to the driver when using the class from the selenium module.

By using the webdriver_manager module, we can just call the install method on the specific driver manager and it just works.

# Downloading ChromeDriver manually

If you want to download ChromeDriver manually instead of using webdriver_manager, follow the instructions:

1. Visit the ChromeDriver Downloads package and under current releases click on the download link for your version of Chrome.

2. Once you click on the link, make sure to download the correct zip file for your operating system. There are files for Linux, macOS and Windows.
3. Extract the zip file.
4. You can either place the chromedriver.exe file in a directory that is already listed in your PATH, or you can place the driver in a directory and add the directory to your PATH.

To see what directories are already on your PATH, issue the following command in bash or zsh.

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echo $PATH

And the following command on Windows.

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echo %PATH%

If the chromedriver.exe file is not in a directory that's already on PATH, add the directory to your PATH with the following command.

For bash shell:

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echo 'export PATH=$PATH:/path/to/driver' >> ~/.bash_profile

source ~/.bash_profile

For zsh shell:

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echo 'export PATH=$PATH:/path/to/driver' >> ~/.zshenv

source ~/.zshenv

For Windows:

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setx PATH "%PATH%;C:\WebDriver\bin"

You can test if you have added chromedriver correctly to your PATH by issuing the following command.

For bash or zsh:

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chromedriver

For Windows:

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chromedriver.exe

If you aren't able to start the Chrome browser without specifying a path, try explicitly setting the path to the chromedriver.exe file.

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import time

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.service import Service

driver = webdriver.Chrome(service=Service(
    r'C:/Users/bobbyhadz/Documents/chromedriver.exe'))

driver.get("http://www.python.org")

time.sleep(2)

driver.close()

Make sure to specify the correct path to your chromedriver.exe executable.

You can also follow the official selenium guide to set up chromedriver.

# Starting with version 4.6, Selenium comes with batteries included

In November 2022, the selenium team introduced Selenium version 4.6.

The version comes with the batteries included and only requires you to have Chrome installed.

The Selenium package now configures the driver for Chrome if it isn't present on the PATH environment variable.

If your selenium version is older than 4.6, update the package by running the following command.

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pip install selenium --upgrade
pip3 install selenium --upgrade

# 👇️ If you don't have pip in your PATH environment variable
python -m pip install selenium --upgrade
python3 -m pip install selenium --upgrade

You can use the pip show command to check your selenium version.

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pip show selenium

If you already have the browser driver installed on your machine, the feature of automatically setting up browser drivers will be ignored.

The feature is only in effect if selenium cannot find the browser drivers present on your PATH environment variable.

# Message: session not created: This version of ChromeDriver only supports Chrome version 102

The error "Message: session not created: This version of ChromeDriver only supports Chrome version 102" occurs when your version of ChromeDriver doesn't support your installed version of Chrome.

To solve the error install and use the webdriver-manager package which automatically uses the correct ChromeDriver version.

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selenium.common.exceptions.SessionNotCreatedException: Message: session not created: This version of ChromeDriver only supports Chrome version 102
Current browser version is 100.0.4896.127 with binary path C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe

Open your terminal in your project's root directory and run the following command.

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pip install webdriver-manager selenium

# 👇️ For Python 3
pip3 install webdriver-manager selenium

# 👇️ If you get a permissions error
sudo pip3 install webdriver-manager selenium

# 👇️ If you don't have pip in your PATH environment variable
python -m pip install webdriver-manager selenium

# 👇️ For python 3
python3 -m pip install webdriver-manager selenium

# 👇️ Using py alias
py -m pip install webdriver-manager selenium

# 👇️ Alternative if you get a permissions error
pip install webdriver-manager selenium --user

The command installs the webdriver-manager package which simplifies the management of binary drivers for different browsers.

Here is an example of using the Webdriver manager with Selenium 4.

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import time
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.service import Service
from webdriver_manager.chrome import ChromeDriverManager

driver = webdriver.Chrome(service=Service(ChromeDriverManager().install()))

driver.get("http://www.python.org")

time.sleep(2)

driver.close()

And here is an example of how to use the Webdriver manager with Selenium 3.

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from selenium import webdriver
from webdriver_manager.chrome import ChromeDriverManager

driver = webdriver.Chrome(ChromeDriverManager().install())

You can check how to use the Webdriver manager package with Selenium v3 and v4 for all browser types in this section of the package's pypi page.

Alternatively, you can use the chromedriver-autoinstaller package which automatically downloads and installs ChromeDriver that supports the currently installed version of Chrome.

Open your terminal in your project's root directory and run the following command.

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pip install chromedriver-autoinstaller

# 👇️ For Python 3
pip3 install chromedriver-autoinstaller

# 👇️ If you get a permissions error
sudo pip3 install chromedriver-autoinstaller

# 👇️ If you don't have pip in your PATH environment variable
python -m pip install chromedriver-autoinstaller

# 👇️ For python 3
python3 -m pip install chromedriver-autoinstaller

# 👇️ Using py alias
py -m pip install chromedriver-autoinstaller

# 👇️ Alternative if you get a permissions error
pip install chromedriver-autoinstaller --user

Now you only have to import chromedriver_autoinstaller in your module.

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import time
import chromedriver_autoinstaller
from selenium import webdriver

chromedriver_autoinstaller.install()

driver = webdriver.Chrome()

driver.get("http://www.python.org")

time.sleep(2)

driver.close()

The chromedriver-autoinstaller package automatically downloads and installs ChromeDriver for your version of Chrome.

I've also written an article on Message: 'geckodriver' executable needs to be in PATH.

The error occurs when using Firefox with selenium.