Skip to main content
Intercept file downloads triggered by clicking DOM elements.
When a click triggers a file download in the browser, Playwright can intercept it before the browser handles it natively. This is especially useful for files like PDFs that the browser would otherwise open in a new tab instead of downloading. downloadViaClick captures the file contents as a buffer so your workflow can process the file directly without relying on browser rendering behavior.

​
downloadViaClick()

Clicks a DOM element and intercepts the resulting download using Playwright’s download event. The download listener is registered before the click so the event is never missed. 
async function downloadViaClick(
  page: Page,
  selector: string,
  options?: DownloadViaClickOptions,
): Promise<DownloadResult>;

​
Parameters

​
page
Page
required
The Playwright Page to operate on.
​
selector
string
required
CSS selector for the element that triggers the download when clicked.
​
options
DownloadViaClickOptions

​
DownloadResult

​
buffer
Buffer
The raw file contents.
​
filename
string
The filename suggested by the server via the Content-Disposition header or the URL.

​
Example

import { downloadViaClick } from "libretto";

const { buffer, filename } = await downloadViaClick(page, "#export-btn", {
  logger,
  timeout: 60_000,
});

console.log(`Downloaded ${filename} (${buffer.length} bytes)`);