🖼️ WebP screenshots

page.screenshot() and locator.screenshot() can now capture screenshots in the WebP format. Playwright infers the format from a .webp file extension, or you can set the type explicitly. Quality 100 (the default) is lossless, while lower values use lossy compression:

page.screenshot(path="homepage.webp", quality=50)

New APIs

• New scroll option ("auto" | "none") on actions to opt out of Playwright's automatic scrolling into view.
• New locator.wait_for_function() waits until a function called with the matching element returns a truthy value.
• New apiResponse.timing() returns resource timing information for an API response.

Announcements

• 📋 The clipboard is now isolated from the operating system in headless mode, so tests that use navigator.clipboard no longer read or overwrite the clipboard of the machine running them.
• ⚠️ Debian 11 is not supported anymore.

Browser Versions

• Chromium 151.0.7922.34
• Mozilla Firefox 153.0
• WebKit 26.5

This version was also tested against the following stable channels:

• Google Chrome 151
• Microsoft Edge 151

🔑 WebAuthn passkeys

New Credentials virtual authenticator, available via browserContext.credentials, lets tests register passkeys and answer navigator.credentials.create() / navigator.credentials.get() ceremonies in the page — no real hardware key required, works in all browsers:

context = browser.new_context()

# Seed a passkey your backend provisioned for a test user.
context.credentials.create("example.com",
    id=credential_id,
    user_handle=user_handle,
    private_key=private_key,
    public_key=public_key,
)
context.credentials.install()

page = context.new_page()
page.goto("https://example.com/login")
# The page's navigator.credentials.get() is answered with the seeded passkey.

You can also let the app register a passkey once in a setup test, read it back with credentials.get(), and seed it into later tests — see Credentials for details.

🗃️ Web Storage

New WebStorage API, available via page.localStorage and page.sessionStorage, reads and writes the page's storage for the current origin:

page.local_storage.set_item("token", "abc")
token = page.local_storage.get_item("token")
items = page.session_storage.items()

New APIs

• apiResponse.security_details() and apiResponse.server_addr() mirror the browser-side response.security_details() and response.server_addr().
• New option artifacts_dir in browserType.connect_over_cdp() controls where artifacts such as traces and downloads are stored when attached to an existing browser.
• New option cursor in screencast.show_actions() controls the cursor decoration rendered for pointer actions.
• The on_frame callback in screencast.start() now receives a timestamp of when the frame was presented by the browser.

🛠️ Other improvements

• Playwright now supports Ubuntu 26.04.
• HAR and trace recordings now include WebSocket requests.

Browser Versions

• Chromium 149.0.7827.55
• Mozilla Firefox 151.0
• WebKit 26.5

This version was also tested against the following stable channels:

• Google Chrome 149
• Microsoft Edge 149

🐍 Python improvements

• New FormData class for building multipart/form-data request bodies — pass to api_request_context.post(form=…) etc.
• expect.soft(...) soft assertions collect multiple failures in a test instead of stopping at the first one. Requires up-to-date pytest integration to work.
• All timeout parameters now accept datetime.timedelta — applies wherever a timeout is taken, e.g. page.goto(), locator.click(), expect(...).to_be_visible().
• Async context manager support across more APIs — async with now works for objects returned from screencast.show_actions(), screencast.show_overlays(), etc.
• page.expect_request(...) and page.expect_response(...) now accept async predicates.
• Typed overloads for expect_event / wait_for_event so the event payload type is inferred per event name.

🌐 HAR recording on Tracing

tracing.start_har() / tracing.stop_har() expose HAR recording as a first-class tracing API, with the same content, mode and url_filter options as record_har:

context.tracing.start_har("trace.har")
page = context.new_page()
page.goto("https://playwright.dev")
context.tracing.stop_har()

🪝 Drop API

New locator.drop() simulates an external drag-and-drop of files or clipboard-like data onto an element. Playwright dispatches dragenter, dragover, and drop with a synthetic DataTransfer in the page context — works cross-browser and is great for testing upload zones:

page.locator("#dropzone").drop(
    files={"name": "note.txt", "mime_type": "text/plain", "buffer": b"hello"},
)

page.locator("#dropzone").drop(
    data={
        "text/plain": "hello world",
        "text/uri-list": "https://example.com",
    },
)

🎯 Aria snapshots

• expect(page).to_match_aria_snapshot() now works on a Page, in addition to a Locator — equivalent to asserting against page.locator("body").
• New boxes option on locator.aria_snapshot() / page.aria_snapshot() appends each element's bounding box as [box=x,y,width,height], useful for AI consumption.

New APIs

Browser, Context and Page

• Event browser.on("context") — fired when a new context is created on the browser.
• BrowserContext now mirrors lifecycle events from its pages: browser_context.on("download"), browser_context.on("frameattached"), browser_context.on("framedetached"), browser_context.on("framenavigated"), browser_context.on("pageclose"), browser_context.on("pageload").

Locators and Assertions

• New option description in page.get_by_role() / locator.get_by_role() / frame.get_by_role() / frame_locator.get_by_role() for matching the accessible description.
• New option pseudo in expect(locator).to_have_css() reads computed styles from ::before or ::after.
• New option style in locator.highlight() applies extra inline CSS to the highlight overlay, plus new page.hide_highlight() to clear all highlights.

Network

• web_socket_route.protocols() returns the WebSocket subprotocols requested by the page.
• New option no_defaults in browser_type.connect_over_cdp() disables Playwright's default overrides on the default context (download behavior, focus emulation, media emulation), so attaching to a user's daily-driver browser doesn't disturb its state.

Errors

• New web_error.location() mirrors console_message.location().
• console_message.location() now exposes line / column properties (line_number / column_number are deprecated).

🛠️ Other improvements

• Trace Viewer adds a pretty-print toggle for JSON / form request and response bodies in the network details panel.

Breaking Changes ⚠️

• Removed long-deprecated handle option on browser_context.expose_binding() and page.expose_binding().

Browser Versions

• Chromium 148.0.7778.96
• Mozilla Firefox 150.0.2
• WebKit 26.4

This version was also tested against the following stable channels:

• Google Chrome 147
• Microsoft Edge 147

🎬 Screencast

New page.screencast API provides a unified interface for capturing page content with:

• Screencast recordings
• Action annotations
• Visual overlays
• Real-time frame capture
• Agentic video receipts

Screencast recording — record video with precise start/stop control, as an alternative to the recordVideoDir option:

page.screencast.start(path="video.webm")
# ... perform actions ...
page.screencast.stop()

Action annotations — enable built-in visual annotations that highlight interacted elements and display action titles during recording:

page.screencast.show_actions(position="top-right")

screencast.show_actions() accepts position ('top-left', 'top', 'top-right', 'bottom-left', 'bottom', 'bottom-right'), duration (ms per annotation), and font_size (px). Returns a disposable to stop showing actions.

Visual overlays — add chapter titles and custom HTML overlays on top of the page for richer narration:

page.screencast.show_chapter("Adding TODOs",
    description="Type and press enter for each TODO",
    duration=1000,
)

page.screencast.show_overlay('<div style="color: red">Recording</div>')

Real-time frame capture — stream JPEG-encoded frames for custom processing like thumbnails, live previews, AI vision, and more:

page.screencast.start(
    on_frame=lambda frame: send_to_vision_model(frame["data"]),
)

Agentic video receipts — coding agents can produce video evidence of their work. After completing a task, an agent can record a walkthrough video with rich annotations for human review:

page.screencast.start(path="receipt.webm")
page.screencast.show_actions(position="top-right")

page.screencast.show_chapter("Verifying checkout flow",
    description="Added coupon code support per ticket #1234",
)

# Agent performs the verification steps...
page.locator("#coupon").fill("SAVE20")
page.locator("#apply-coupon").click()
expect(page.locator(".discount")).to_contain_text("20%")

page.screencast.show_chapter("Done",
    description="Coupon applied, discount reflected in total",
)

page.screencast.stop()

The resulting video serves as a receipt: chapter titles provide context, action annotations highlight each interaction, and the visual walkthrough is faster to review than text logs.

🔍 Snapshots and Locators

• Method page.aria_snapshot() to capture the aria snapshot of the page — equivalent to page.locator('body').aria_snapshot().
• Options depth and mode in locator.aria_snapshot().
• Method locator.normalize() converts a locator to follow best practices like test ids and aria roles.
• Method page.pick_locator() enters an interactive mode where hovering over elements highlights them and shows the corresponding locator. Click an element to get its Locator back. Use page.cancel_pick_locator() to cancel.

New APIs

Screencast

• page.screencast provides video recording, real-time frame streaming, and overlay management.
• Methods screencast.start() and screencast.stop() for recording and frame capture.
• Methods screencast.show_actions() and screencast.hide_actions() for action annotations.
• Methods screencast.show_chapter() and screencast.show_overlay() for visual overlays.
• Methods screencast.show_overlays() and screencast.hide_overlays() for overlay visibility control.

Storage, Console and Errors

• Method browser_context.set_storage_state() clears existing cookies, local storage, and IndexedDB for all origins and sets a new storage state — no need to create a new context.
• Methods page.clear_console_messages() and page.clear_page_errors() to clear stored messages and errors.
• Option filter in page.console_messages() and page.page_errors() controls which messages are returned.
• Method console_message.timestamp().

Miscellaneous

• browser_context.debugger provides programmatic control over the Playwright debugger.
• Method browser_context.is_closed().
• Method request.existing_response() returns the response without waiting.
• Method response.http_version() returns the HTTP version used by the response.
• Option live in tracing.start() for real-time trace updates.
• Option artifacts_dir in browser_type.launch() to configure the artifacts directory.

🔗 Interoperability

New browser.bind() API makes a launched browser available for playwright-cli, @playwright/mcp, and other clients to connect to.

Bind a browser — start a browser and bind it so others can connect:

server_info = await browser.bind("my-session",
    workspace_dir="/my/project",
)

Connect from playwright-cli — connect to the running browser from your favorite coding agent.

playwright-cli attach my-session
playwright-cli -s my-session snapshot

Connect from @playwright/mcp — or point your MCP server to the running browser.

@playwright/mcp --endpoint=my-session

Connect from a Playwright client — use API to connect to the browser. Multiple clients at a time are supported!

browser = await chromium.connect(server_info["endpoint"])

Pass host and port options to bind over WebSocket instead of a named pipe:

server_info = await browser.bind("my-session",
    host="localhost",
    port=0,
)
# server_info["endpoint"] is a ws:// URL

Call browser.unbind() to stop accepting new connections.

📊 Observability

Run playwright-cli show to open the Dashboard that lists all the bound browsers, their statuses, and allows interacting with them:

• See what your agent is doing on the background browsers
• Click into the sessions for manual interventions
• Open DevTools to inspect pages from the background browsers.

Breaking Changes ⚠️

• Removed macOS 14 support for WebKit. We recommend upgrading your macOS version, or keeping an older Playwright version.

Browser Versions

• Chromium 147.0.7727.15
• Mozilla Firefox 148.0.2
• WebKit 26.4

This version was also tested against the following stable channels:

• Google Chrome 146
• Microsoft Edge 146

Trace Viewer Improvements

• New 'system' theme option follows your OS dark/light mode preference
• Search functionality (Cmd/Ctrl+F) is now available in code editors
• Network details panel has been reorganized for better usability
• JSON responses are now automatically formatted for readability

Thanks to @cpAdm for contributing these improvements!

Miscellaneous

browser_type.connect_over_cdp() now accepts an is_local option. When set to True, it tells Playwright that it runs on the same host as the CDP server, enabling file system optimizations.

Breaking Changes ⚠️

• Removed _react and _vue selectors. See locators guide for alternatives.
• Removed :light selector engine suffix. Use standard CSS selectors instead.
• Option devtools from browser_type.launch() has been removed. Use args=['--auto-open-devtools-for-tabs'] instead.
• Removed macOS 13 support for WebKit. We recommend to upgrade your macOS version, or keep using an older Playwright version.

Browser Versions

• Chromium 145.0.7632.6
• Mozilla Firefox 146.0.1
• WebKit 26.0

This version was also tested against the following stable channels:

• Google Chrome 144
• Microsoft Edge 144

Chrome for Testing

Starting with this release, Playwright switches from Chromium, to using Chrome for Testing builds. Both headed and headless browsers are subject to this. Your tests should still be passing after upgrading to Playwright 1.57.

We're expecting no functional changes to come from this switch. The biggest change is the new icon and title in your toolbar.

If you still see an unexpected behaviour change, please file an issue.

On Arm64 Linux, Playwright continues to use Chromium.

Breaking Change

After 3 years of being deprecated, we removed page.accessibility from our API. Please use other libraries such as Axe if you need to test page accessibility. See our Node.js guide for integration with Axe.

New APIs

• worker.on("console") event is emitted when JavaScript within the worker calls one of console API methods, e.g. console.log or console.dir. worker.expect_event() can be used to wait for it.
• locator.description() returns locator description previously set with locator.describe().
• New option steps in locator.click() and locator.drag_to() that configures the number of mousemove events emitted while moving the mouse pointer to the target element.
• Network requests issued by Service Workers are now reported and can be routed through the BrowserContext, only in Chromium. You can opt out using the PLAYWRIGHT_DISABLE_SERVICE_WORKER_NETWORK environment variable.
• Console messages from Service Workers are dispatched through worker.on("console"). You can opt out of this using the PLAYWRIGHT_DISABLE_SERVICE_WORKER_CONSOLE environment variable.

Browser Versions

• Chromium 143.0.7499.4
• Mozilla Firefox 144.0.2
• WebKit 26.0

New APIs

• New methods page. console_messages() and page.page_errors() for retrieving the most recent console messages from the page
• New method page.requests() for retrieving the most recent network requests from the page

Breaking Changes

• Event browserContext.on("backgroundpage") has been deprecated and will not be emitted. Method browserContext. background_pages() will return an empty list

Miscellaneous

• Aria snapshots render and compare input placeholder

Browser Versions

• Chromium 141.0.7390.37
• Mozilla Firefox 142.0.1
• WebKit 26.0

Codegen

• Automatic to_be_visible() assertions: Codegen can now generate automatic to_be_visible() assertions for common UI interactions. This feature can be enabled in the Codegen settings UI.

Breaking Changes

• ⚠️ Dropped support for Chromium extension manifest v2.

Miscellaneous

• Added support for Debian 13 "Trixie".

Browser Versions

• Chromium 140.0.7339.16
• Mozilla Firefox 141.0
• WebKit 26.0

This version was also tested against the following stable channels:

• Google Chrome 139
• Microsoft Edge 139

Highlights

• New cookie property partition_key in BrowserContext.cookies() and browserContext.add_cookies(). This property allows to save and restore partitioned cookies. See CHIPS MDN article for more information. Note that browsers have different support and defaults for cookie partitioning.

• New option --user-data-dir in multiple commands. You can specify the same user data dir to reuse browsing state, like authentication, between sessions.

  playwright codegen --user-data-dir=./user-data

• playwright open does not open the test recorder anymore. Use playwright codegen instead.

Browser Versions

• Chromium 139.0.7258.5
• Mozilla Firefox 140.0.2
• WebKit 26.0

This version was also tested against the following stable channels:

• Google Chrome 140
• Microsoft Edge 140

Miscellaneous

• New Steps in Trace Viewer:
  

• New method locator.describe() to describe a locator. Used for trace viewer.

  button = page.get_by_test_id("btn-sub").describe("Subscribe button")
  button.click()

• python -m playwright install --list will now list all installed browsers, versions and locations.

Browser Versions

• Chromium 138.0.7204.4
• Mozilla Firefox 139.0
• WebKit 18.5

This version was also tested against the following stable channels:

• Google Chrome 137
• Microsoft Edge 137