How to Get Current URL in Selenium: Simple Syntax & Example

In Selenium, you can get the current URL of the browser using the driver.current_url property in Python or driver.getCurrentUrl() method in Java. This returns the URL string of the page currently loaded in the browser controlled by Selenium.

Syntax

The syntax to get the current URL depends on the programming language used with Selenium WebDriver.

• Python: Use driver.current_url to get the current page URL as a string.
• Java: Use driver.getCurrentUrl() method which returns the current URL string.

Here, driver is the WebDriver instance controlling the browser.

plaintext

Python:
current_url = driver.current_url

Java:
String currentUrl = driver.getCurrentUrl();

Example

This example shows how to open a website and print the current URL using Selenium WebDriver in Python.

python

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

# Setup Chrome options
options = Options()
options.add_argument('--headless')  # Run browser in headless mode

# Setup WebDriver service
service = Service()
driver = webdriver.Chrome(service=service, options=options)

# Open a website
url = 'https://example.com'
driver.get(url)

# Get current URL
current_url = driver.current_url
print('Current URL:', current_url)

# Close the browser
driver.quit()

Output

Current URL: https://example.com/

Common Pitfalls

• Trying to get the current URL before the page loads fully can return an old or empty URL.
• Using incorrect WebDriver instance or closing the driver before getting the URL causes errors.
• In Java, forgetting parentheses in getCurrentUrl() leads to compilation errors.
• Not handling exceptions when the browser session ends can cause test failures.

java

Wrong (Java):
String url = driver.getCurrentUrl;  // Missing parentheses

Right (Java):
String url = driver.getCurrentUrl();

Quick Reference

Language	Syntax to Get Current URL
Python	driver.current_url
Java	driver.getCurrentUrl()

Key Takeaways

Use driver.current_url in Python or driver.getCurrentUrl() in Java to get the current page URL.

Always ensure the page is fully loaded before retrieving the URL to get accurate results.

Remember to use parentheses with getCurrentUrl() in Java to avoid syntax errors.

Handle browser session properly to avoid exceptions when accessing the current URL.