Using Selenium to Check if Element Exists in Python

To check if an element exists in a web page when using the Python Selenium module, the easiest way is with the Selenium webdriver find_element() or find_elements() functions.

find_element() returns a single element if it is found, and find_elements() returns a list if the elements are found. If elements are not found, a NoSuchElementException is raised.

from selenium import webdriver

driver = webdriver.Chrome()

driver.get("http://theprogrammingexpert.com/")

try:
   content = driver.find_element(By.CSS_SELECTOR,"h1"):
   print("element found!")
except:
   print("element not found")

#Output:
element found!

The Selenium Python module gives you the tools you need to be able to automate many tasks when working with web browsers.

When working with a web page, sometimes it can be useful to check if an element exists.

The easiest way to check if an element exists in a web page is with the Selenium webdriver find_element() function. You can pass “By.CSS_SELECTOR” to find an element by a css selector.

If the element exists, then find_element() will return that element. If the element doesn’t exist, then find_element() raises a NoSuchElementException.

Therefore, you need to wrap the code in a try/except block.

Below is a simple example showing you how to check if an element exists in a web page using Selenium in Python.

from selenium import webdriver

driver = webdriver.Chrome()

driver.get("http://theprogrammingexpert.com/")

try:
   content = driver.find_element(By.CSS_SELECTOR,"h1"):
   print("element found!")
except:
   print("element not found")

#Output:
element found!

If you want to get all elements by a certain css selector, then you can use the find_elements() function. find_elements() returns a list of elements if they exist.

from selenium import webdriver

driver = webdriver.Chrome()

driver.get("http://theprogrammingexpert.com/")

try:
   content = driver.find_elements(By.CSS_Selector,"h1"):
   print("element found!")
except:
   print("element not found")

#Output:
element found!

Hopefully this article has been useful for you to learn how to check if an element exists when using Selenium in Python.