How to close an internet tab with cmd/Python?

Question

So I'm writing a Python script to open internet links using cmd. For example:

import os
os.system('start http://stackoverflow.com/')
os.system('start http://www.google.com/')
os.system('start http://www.facebook.com/')

After I open them I do:

import time 
time.sleep(60)

So I can wait a minute before doing anything else. What I can't seem to find anywhere is a way to close these tabs after I have opened them for 60 seconds? Is there a command I can use to close internet tabs in cmd?

Note: I'm using Windows 8, Python 2.7.9, and Google Chrome

Padraic Cunningham · Answer 1 · 2015-03-21T21:33:30.747

6

You can start processes and then kill them after 60 seconds.

from subprocess import Popen, check_call

p1 = Popen('start http://stackoverflow.com/')
p2 = Popen('start http://www.google.com/')
p3 = Popen('start http://www.facebook.com/')

time.sleep(60)
for pid in [p1.pid,p2.pid,p3.pid]:
    check_call(['taskkill', '/F', '/T', '/PID', str(pid)])

replacing-os-system

If you want to open a browser with three tabs then close I would use selenium or something similar:

import time
from selenium import webdriver


dr = webdriver.Chrome()

dr.get('http://stackoverflow.com/')
dr.execute_script("$(window.open('http://www.google.com/'))")
dr.execute_script("$(window.open('http://facebook.com/'))")

time.sleep(5)
dr.close()
dr.switch_to.window(dr.window_handles[-1])
dr.close()
dr.switch_to.window(dr.window_handles[-1])
dr.close()

chromedriver, selenium

edited Mar 21 '15 at 21:33

answered Mar 21 '15 at 19:22

Padraic Cunningham

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@logic, looks like killing processes on windows is not straight forward I will edit – Padraic Cunningham Mar 21 '15 at 19:39
windoze! try `p1 = Popen('exec start http://www.facebook.com/',shell=True)` then `p1.kill()` again – Padraic Cunningham Mar 21 '15 at 20:03
pretty sure it is the shell=True causing the problem, do you have psutil installed? If so try http://pastebin.com/xkHakBkn, also can you open the page using the chrome.exe? – Padraic Cunningham Mar 21 '15 at 20:18
when you use shell=True all that gets killed is the actual shell. I would try installing psutil, you can just `pip install psutil`, out of interest does the /c command cause an error? – Padraic Cunningham Mar 21 '15 at 20:39
@logic. did you try psutil? You could start the process with win32api but that is a lot more involved – Padraic Cunningham Mar 21 '15 at 20:52
what exactly do you want to do with the webpages? – Padraic Cunningham Mar 21 '15 at 20:57
what are you doing exactly, there must be more to it than just opening and closing a tab. You know there are many ways to open a browser in python without starting a subprocess – Padraic Cunningham Mar 21 '15 at 21:00
@logic, really using selenium to do this or something similar would be a lot easier – Padraic Cunningham Mar 22 '15 at 09:58

score 5 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 30 '19 at 11:41

5

You can simply use the keyboard shortcuts:

import keyboard

# here goes your code... 

keyboard.press_and_release('ctrl+w') # closes the last tab

This will just close the last tab, not all (or as many as you want, starting from the last)

answered Oct 30 '19 at 11:41

Berry

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1
4

1

As this isn't part of the standard library I'm guessing it's [keyboard](https://github.com/boppreh/keyboard). – Mark Lawrence Jan 20 '21 at 07:34
Yes Mark Lawrence, I should have clarified. – Berry Oct 22 '21 at 11:32

Jossef Harush Kadouri · Answer 3 · 2015-03-21T21:09:04.070

Chrome got it's own process and resource management. the lifecycle of a new chrome.exe <url> is short. a new chrome process communicate and passes the new tab request to another chrome process and exits immediately. therefore the PID of the new chrome.exe is irrelevant and killing it will not going to close the newly opened tabs (as suggested in the sibling answer).

However, You can use this Naive alternative:

open chrome.exe <url>
wait 60 secs
close all chrome.exe processes

for example:

from subprocess import Popen
import time

urls = ['http://www.facebook.com/', 'http://www.google.com/']

for url in urls:
    Popen(['start', 'chrome' , url], shell=True)

time.sleep(60)

Popen('taskkill /F /IM chrome.exe', shell=True)

Note - it will close ALL of your `chrome` instances

sorry, i misunderstood your first comment :) you are right, it can be simplified to a single string. just edited — Jossef Harush Kadouri, Mar 21 '15 at 21:09

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 11 '16 at 19:37

from selenium import webdriver  
from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys
import time

browser = webdriver.Firefox()
browser.get('http://stackoverflow.com')
main_window = browser.current_window_handle

Open new tab

browser.find_element_by_tag_name('body').send_keys(Keys.CONTROL + 't')
browser.get('http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/django')

Wait 10 sec and close the new tab.

time.sleep(10)

Close New tab. The first tab remains open.

browser.find_element_by_tag_name('body').send_keys(Keys.CONTROL + 'w')

How to close an internet tab with cmd/Python?

4 Answers4

Note - it will close ALL of your `chrome` instances

Open new tab

Wait 10 sec and close the new tab.

Close New tab. The first tab remains open.

Linked

How to close an internet tab with cmd/Python?

4 Answers4

Note - it will close ALL of your chrome instances

Open new tab

Wait 10 sec and close the new tab.

Close New tab. The first tab remains open.

Linked

Note - it will close ALL of your `chrome` instances