ChromeDriver - Disable developer mode extensions pop up on Selenium WebDriver automation

Did you try disabling the developer extensions with command line param?

Try with the following Selenium WebDriver java code:

System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver", "D:\\chromedriver.exe");
ChromeOptions options = new ChromeOptions();
options.addArguments("--disable-extensions");
driver = new ChromeDriver(options);

I cannot disable extensions because I'm developing & testing one.

What I'm doing to dismiss this popup is the following:

  1. I load chrome with my extension using Selenium.
  2. I then immediately create a new window (via the SendKeys(Control-N) method). This predictably brings up the "Disable Developer Mode Extensions" popup after 3 seconds in the new window.
  3. I can't tell programmatically when it pops up (doesn't show in screenshots) so instead I simply wait 4 seconds.
  4. Then I close the tab via driver.Close(); (which also closes this new window). Chrome takes that as "cancel", dismissing the popup, leaving the original window and tab.

I find this necessary because the popup interferes with normal selenium browser interaction, like SendKeys, which I'm using to switch tabs and windows.


As of Chromedriver v2.33, the correct way to avoid this message is to pass load-extension to the excludeSwitches argument of the chromeOptions object. The following Java code should do the trick, although I haven't tested it, as I am running Python:

ChromeOptions options = new ChromeOptions();
options.setExperimentalOption("excludeSwitches", Collections.singletonList("load-extension"));

As others have pointed out, the culprit is probably the Chrome Automation Extension, which is loaded automatically by Chromedriver when it launches Chrome.

Chromedriver v2.33 introduced the new switch to prevent the extensions from being loaded:

Updates to excludeSwitches capability that now allows to exclude --load-extension switch.

I suspect that this solution does not require you to disable all extensions. You should still be able to manually load others.