The stealth-first browser automation library for Python.
No WebDriver, no navigator.webdriver flag, humanized clicks and typing.

Documentation · Getting Started · Features · Support

You have probably watched a scraper work on your machine, then hit a wall of captchas and Cloudflare challenges the moment it ran for real. That wall is what Pydoll is built around. It drives Chrome directly over the DevTools Protocol, so there is no WebDriver binary and no navigator.webdriver flag to give you away, and it clicks, types, and scrolls like a real person. That is often enough to get past the bot protection that stops ordinary automation, all behind an async, fully typed API.

Why Pydoll?

• Fingerprint injection: Make the browser report a fully consistent identity with tab.apply_fingerprint(): User-Agent, Client Hints, navigator, WebGL, canvas, screen, fonts, timezone and locale, all aligned. The injected overrides survive toString and prototype introspection and propagate into Web Workers, so lie-detection checks like CreepJS's don't flag them.
• Humanized interactions: Mouse movement along Bezier curves, realistic typing, and scroll physics. Often enough to pass behavioral challenges like Cloudflare Turnstile or reCAPTCHA v3, depending on your browser and IP reputation.
• Zero WebDrivers: A direct CDP connection over WebSocket. No driver binary, no navigator.webdriver flag, no version-matching headaches.
• Async and typed: Built on asyncio, type-checked with mypy. Full IDE autocompletion and static error checking.
• Network control: Intercept requests to block ads/trackers, monitor traffic for API discovery, and make authenticated HTTP requests that inherit the browser session.
• Shadow DOM and iframes: Full support for shadow roots (including closed) and cross-origin iframes. Discover, query, and interact with elements inside them using the same API.
• Structured extraction: Define a Pydantic model, call tab.extract(), and get typed, validated data back. No manual element-by-element querying.

[!NOTE] A word from the maintainer. Pydoll is currently maintained by a single person, and I'm a bit stretched at the moment, so new releases and replies to issues may take a little longer than usual. To be clear: the project is not dead, and it is not going anywhere. Development continues; it's just moving at a calmer pace for now.

A goal to aim for: once the project reaches 10k stars, I plan to ship Firefox support, a big step that opens up a whole new range of possibilities for the library. Momentum like that is exactly the kind of incentive that makes a feature this large worth taking on, so if you'd like to see it happen, that's the push it needs.

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Installation

pip install pydoll-python

No WebDriver binaries or external dependencies required.

Getting Started

1. Stealthy Automation

The imperative API handles the basics: start a browser, navigate, find elements, and interact with them. Pass humanize=True to add human-like timing for anti-bot evasion.

import asyncio

from pydoll.browser import Chrome
from pydoll.constants import Key

async def google_search(query: str):
    async with Chrome() as browser:
        tab = await browser.start()
        await browser.set_window_maximized()
        tab.mouse.debug = True
        await tab.go_to('https://www.google.com')
        # Find elements and interact with human-like timing
        search_box = await tab.find(tag_name='textarea', name='q')
        await search_box.type_text(query, humanize=True)
        await tab.keyboard.press(Key.ENTER)

        first_result = await tab.find(
            tag_name='h3',
            text='autoscrape-labs/pydoll',
            timeout=10,
        )
        await first_result.click(humanize=True)
        await asyncio.sleep(5)
        print(f"Page loaded: {await tab.title}")

asyncio.run(google_search('pydoll site:github.com'))

2. Fingerprint Injection

Pydoll can also make the browser report a different identity. tab.apply_fingerprint() overrides the surface that fingerprinting scripts read (User-Agent and Client Hints, navigator, WebGL, canvas, screen, fonts, timezone and locale) and keeps those values consistent with each other.

Spoofing a fingerprint is less about changing the values than about not getting caught changing them. Modern anti-bot scripts inspect how a property was defined: a naive Object.defineProperty leaves a fake toString, an own-property where a prototype getter should be, or an override that a phantom iframe or a Web Worker can see straight through. Pydoll handles this: injected getters read as native under toString and prototype introspection, and the same identity is replayed inside dedicated, shared and service workers.

It also neutralizes the headless tells, chiefly the SwiftShader WebGL renderer that gives away a GPU-less browser, so headless=True is no longer an automatic giveaway. That is what lets a plain Google search run in headless mode. (Cloudflare Turnstile in headless is still under study.)

import asyncio

from pydoll.browser.chromium import Chrome

from examples.fingerprints import FINGERPRINTS

async def spoof_fingerprint():
    async with Chrome() as browser:
        tab = await browser.start()

        # Apply before navigating: the JS overrides register on every new document.
        await tab.apply_fingerprint(FINGERPRINTS['windows11_rtx3060_nyc'])

        await tab.go_to('https://abrahamjuliot.github.io/creepjs/')
        print('Fingerprint applied.')
        await asyncio.sleep(5)

asyncio.run(spoof_fingerprint())

In our testing it passed each of these fingerprint and bot-detection suites without being flagged:

A fingerprint is only as strong as its weakest layer. Anti-bot systems correlate signals across all of them. A browser that renders as macOS while its Accept-Language says Brazilian Portuguese, its timezone says Tokyo, and its IP geolocates to Germany is more suspicious than a browser you never touched. apply_fingerprint() keeps the layers it controls consistent, but you own the rest: the profile must match the real Chrome binary you drive (the network-layer TLS / HTTP2 fingerprint is authentic and cannot be spoofed) and the geography of your egress IP or proxy. The deep dive on browser fingerprinting and the Timezone and Locale Consistency section explain why a locale that contradicts the IP gets you blocked.

[!IMPORTANT] Pydoll does not generate or ship fingerprints. The profiles in examples/fingerprints.py exist only as a reference for how coherent a profile has to be and the shape of the FingerprintConfig you inject. Bring your own.

Fingerprint Injection Docs

3. Getting past Cloudflare Turnstile

Pydoll gets you past Cloudflare Turnstile the same way a person does: by placing a realistic, humanized click on the widget. It simulates a real user (humanized clicks and movements) and works to make the browser look genuine, so Turnstile assigns a high enough trust score to accept the click. Whether it succeeds depends on your browser and IP reputation.

import asyncio

from pydoll.browser.chromium import Chrome

async def solve_turnstile():
    async with Chrome() as browser:
        tab = await browser.start()

        # Waits for the Turnstile widget, performs a realistic click,
        # and continues once it settles.
        async with tab.expect_and_bypass_cloudflare_captcha():
            await tab.go_to('https://site-with-turnstile.com')

        print('Turnstile handled, continuing...')

asyncio.run(solve_turnstile())

_{Pydoll getting past a Cloudflare Turnstile challenge with a realistic, humanized click.}

[!NOTE] Despite the method name, this isn't a magic bypass. Pydoll performs the same click a real user would; whether it passes depends on your environment (browser fingerprint and IP reputation). See the Turnstile docs for details.

Features

The section above covers the three flows most people start with. The rest of what Pydoll does is below: click any item to expand a short explanation, a runnable example, and a link to its full guide.

import asyncio

from pydoll.browser.chromium import Chrome
from pydoll.extractor import ExtractionModel, Field

class Quote(ExtractionModel):
    text: str = Field(selector='.text', description='The quote text')
    author: str = Field(selector='.author', description='Who said it')
    tags: list[str] = Field(selector='.tag', description='Tags')


async def extract_quotes():
    async with Chrome() as browser:
        tab = await browser.start()
        await tab.go_to('https://quotes.toscrape.com')

        quotes = await tab.extract_all(Quote, scope='.quote', timeout=5)

        for q in quotes:
            print(f'{q.author}: {q.text}')  # fully typed, IDE autocomplete works
            print(q.model_dump_json())       # pydantic serialization built-in

asyncio.run(extract_quotes())

await tab.mouse.move(500, 300, humanize=True)
await tab.mouse.click(500, 300, humanize=True)
await tab.mouse.drag(100, 200, 500, 400, humanize=True)

button = await tab.find(id='submit')
await button.click(humanize=True)

# Default is fast, non-humanized movement
await tab.mouse.click(500, 300)

shadow = await element.get_shadow_root()
button = await shadow.query('.internal-btn')
await button.click()

# Discover all shadow roots on the page
shadow_roots = await tab.find_shadow_roots()
for sr in shadow_roots:
    checkbox = await sr.query('input[type="checkbox"]', raise_exc=False)
    if checkbox:
        await checkbox.click()

from pydoll.browser.chromium import Chrome

async with Chrome() as browser:
    tab = await browser.start()

    async with tab.request.record() as capture:
        await tab.go_to('https://example.com')

    capture.save('flow.har')
    print(f'Captured {len(capture.entries)} requests')

    responses = await tab.request.replay('flow.har')

await tab.save_bundle('page.zip')
await tab.save_bundle('page-inline.zip', inline_assets=True)

# Log in via UI
await tab.go_to('https://my-site.com/login')
await (await tab.find(id='username')).type_text('user')
await (await tab.find(id='password')).type_text('pass123')
await (await tab.find(id='login-btn')).click()

# Make authenticated API calls using the browser session
response = await tab.request.get('https://my-site.com/api/user/profile')
user_data = response.json()

import asyncio
from pydoll.browser.chromium import Chrome
from pydoll.protocol.fetch.events import FetchEvent, RequestPausedEvent
from pydoll.protocol.network.types import ErrorReason

async def block_images():
    async with Chrome() as browser:
        tab = await browser.start()

        async def block_resource(event: RequestPausedEvent):
            request_id = event['params']['requestId']
            resource_type = event['params']['resourceType']

            if resource_type in ['Image', 'Stylesheet']:
                await tab.fail_request(request_id, ErrorReason.BLOCKED_BY_CLIENT)
            else:
                await tab.continue_request(request_id)

        await tab.enable_fetch_events()
        await tab.on(FetchEvent.REQUEST_PAUSED, block_resource)

        await tab.go_to('https://example.com')
        await asyncio.sleep(3)
        await tab.disable_fetch_events()

asyncio.run(block_images())

options = ChromiumOptions()

options.browser_preferences = {
    'profile': {
        'default_content_setting_values': {
            'notifications': 2,
            'geolocation': 2,
        },
        'password_manager_enabled': False
    },
    'intl': {
        'accept_languages': 'en-US,en',
    },
    'browser': {
        'check_default_browser': False,
    }
}

async def scrape_page(url, tab):
    await tab.go_to(url)
    return await tab.title

async def concurrent_scraping():
    async with Chrome() as browser:
        tab_google = await browser.start()
        tab_ddg = await browser.new_tab()

        results = await asyncio.gather(
            scrape_page('https://google.com/', tab_google),
            scrape_page('https://duckduckgo.com/', tab_ddg)
        )
        print(results)

from pydoll.decorators import retry
from pydoll.exceptions import ElementNotFound, NetworkError

@retry(
    max_retries=3,
    exceptions=[ElementNotFound, NetworkError],
    on_retry=my_recovery_function,
    exponential_backoff=True
)
async def scrape_product(self, url: str):
    # scraping logic
    ...

Contributing

Contributions are welcome, whether that is a bug report, a docs fix, or a new feature. If you are not sure where to start, open an issue and we can figure it out together. CONTRIBUTING.md has the dev setup, how to run the tests, and the code style and commit conventions. With one maintainer right now, a clear reproduction or a focused pull request genuinely helps.

Support

A few ways to help Pydoll:

• Star the repo so more people find it (yes, the joke at the top still stands).
• Report a bug or a rough edge you hit. A good issue is worth a lot.
• Improve a docs page, or answer someone else's question in the issues.
• Sponsor the project on GitHub if it saves you time at work.

Any of these keeps the project moving.

License

Pydoll is released under the MIT License. Use it in personal or commercial projects, as long as you keep the copyright notice.