Downloads folder not emptying

Current behavior

When my app downloads files, the downloads folder never gets cleared. The documentation says it should get cleared after each test, but this is not happening. I am having to use rimraf to make that happen but would love if Cypress could handle this.

On a side note, it would be really nice if their was a simple way to view the files in that downloads folder to ensure the correct file with filename downloaded as expected. Right now I have to create a task and use globby (which doesn’t seem very reliable) to make that happen.

Desired behavior

My downloads folder should get emptied after each test.

Test code to reproduce

it('can download JPG when clicking on Download digital passes button', () => {
      cy.intercept({ method: 'POST', path: '/file/location/here' }).as('interceptName');

      cy.getByAriaLabel('Download digital passes').click();

      cy.wait('@interceptName').its('request').then(({ body }) => {
        expect(body).to.have.property('someProperty', 'JPG');
      });
    });

    it('has 1 filename that contains code, Passenger Number and airport from/to codes in downloaded file', () => {
      cy.task('findFileList', `${downloadsFolder}/*.jpg`).then((fileList) => {
        const { recordLocator, segments, passengers } = window.bookingData;
        const from = segments[0].departure.airport.airportCode;
        const to = segments[segments.length - 1].arrival.airport.airportCode;
        const expectedFileName = `${downloadsFolder}/0-${passengers[0].number} ${from}-${to} (${recordLocator}).jpg`;

        expect(fileList.includes(expectedFileName)).to.equal(true);
      });
    });

// the task in plugins/index.js
  on('task', {
    // a task to find one file matching the given mask
    // returns just the first matching file
    findFileList(mask) {
      if (!mask) {
        throw new Error('Missing a file mask to seach');
      }

      console.log('searching for files %s', mask);

      return globby(mask).then((list) => {
        if (!list.length) {
          throw new Error(`Could not find files matching mask "${mask}"`);
        }

        console.log('found files: %s', list);

        return list;
      });
    },
  });

Versions

Cypress 6.4.0, latest version of OSX on Macbook Pro using Chrome 88.

[AustinBernerEvercast]

@sousajunior @Jakejamesreid - I wrote a solution, a little hacky but it works like a charm for me for this functionality. It will clear downloads folder on cy:open

Function for clearing the downloads folder:

const system = require(‘fs’); const path = require(‘path’); const directory = ‘cypress/downloads/’;

// Delete downloaded files in cypress/downloads system.readdir(directory, (err, items) => { if (err) throw err; for (const item of items) { if(item.includes(“.”)){ system.unlink(path.join(directory, item), err => { console.log(“Removed “+item+”.”); if (err) throw err; }); } else { system.rmdir(path.join(directory,item), { recursive: true }, err => { console.log(“Removed “+item+”.”); if(err) throw err; }); } } });

Command to run, chained with cy:open, to invoke the function to clear the downloads folder node cypress/support/clearDownloads.js && cypress open

[AustinBernerEvercast]

@sousajunior Figured I would provide an update for the above solution, I’ve worked it into a beforeEach hook by utilizing the plugins file. This will clear the contents of the cypress/downloads folder before each scenario is run

Please bear in mind that there should be better error reporting here - I consider this to be minimum-viable.

The trick is to use cy.task() to get Cypress to do what you want it to, and to use it within a hook.

Here is the beforeEach hook I have set up:

beforeEach(() => {
  // runs before each test in the block
  
  // ===== VARIABLES =====
    const downloadsDirectory = "cypress/downloads/";

  // ===== FUNCTIONS =====

function clearState(){
  // function to clear user state before proceeding to next scenario
  cy.clearCookies().then(()=>{
    cy.log("Cookies were cleared.");
  })

  // Deletes downloaded files from /cypress/downloads
  cy.task('readdir',{ dirPath: downloadsDirectory}).then(arr=>{
      if(arr.length>0){
        cy.log("Found "+arr.length+" file(s) in "+downloadsDirectory+":"+"\n"+arr)
        cy.task('deleteDownloads',{ dirPath:downloadsDirectory })
        cy.task('readdir',{ dirPath: downloadsDirectory}).then(newArr=>{
          if(newArr.length==0){
            cy.log("Cleared contents of "+downloadsDirectory)
          } else {
            throw new Error("Did not clear all files from "+downloadsDirectory)
          }
        })
      } else {
        cy.log("No files were found to delete in "+downloadsDirectory)
      }
  })

// Uses baseURL set in cypress.json
cy.visit('/',{'retryOnStatusCodeFailure':true}, {timeout:10000})
}

  // ===== EXECUTION =====
  clearState();

})

Here is the content of the plugin:

//*node filesystem
const fs = require('fs');
const path = require('path');

export default (on, config) => {
on('task', {
// ===== task to use node 'fs' (filesystem) to read directory=====
  readdir({ dirPath }) {
    return new Promise((resolve,reject)=>{
      try {
        const dirData = fs.readdirSync(dirPath);
        resolve(dirData);
      } catch (e) {
        reject(e);
      }
    })
  },
  // ===== task to use node 'fs' (filesystem) to delete downloaded files from cypress/downloads
  deleteDownloads( { dirPath }) {
    fs.readdir(dirPath, (err, files) => {
        for (const file of files) {
            fs.unlink(path.join(dirPath, file), err => {
                console.log("Removed "+file);
            });
        }
    });
    return null;
  }
}
}