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Download chromedriver binary and add to your PATH for automated functional testing

Published: 2018-09-19 • Last updated: 2021-01-08

Table of Contents

Many automated functional testing projects these days rely on chromedriver as the main driver. Below are steps for Mac and Windows to download it, add it to your PATH, and verify setup.

You can obviously place the chromedriver binary in any directory you like, I just used Mac ${HOME}/bin and Windows C:\bin for this example.

# Mac

# Via CLI

  1. Create directory ${HOME}/bin
  2. Download chromedriver for Mac and save to ${HOME}/bin
  3. cd ${HOME}/bin && chmod +x chromedriver to make it executable
  4. Open ${HOME}/.bash_profile in a text editor
  5. Add line export PATH="${PATH}:${HOME}/bin" then save the file
  6. Restart your terminal
  7. Verify setup with chromedriver -v

# Windows

# Via CLI

  1. Create directory C:\bin
  2. Download chromedriver for Windows and save to C:\bin
  3. Open Command Prompt and set the PATH for your account 
    setx PATH "%PATH%;C:\bin"
  4. RESTART Command Prompt. Changes made by setx will only be picked up in new instances of Command Prompt
  5. Verify setup with chromedriver.exe -v

# Via GUI

  1. Create directory C:\bin
  2. Download chromedriver for Windows and save to C:\bin
  3. Add directory to your PATH:
  4. Depending on your Windows version:
    • If you’re using Windows 8 or 10, press the Windows key, then search for and select System (Control Panel)
    • If you’re using Windows 7, right click the Computer icon on the desktop and click Properties
  5. Click Advanced system settings
  6. Click Environment Variables
  7. Under System Variables, find the PATH variable, select it, and click Edit. If there is no PATH variable, click New
  8. Add C:\bin to the end of the variable value, preceeded by a ;. For example, if the value was C:\Windows\System32, change it to C:\Windows\System32;C:\bin
  9. Click OK
  10. Restart your command prompt
  11. Verify setup with chromedriver.exe -v