session

The session module can be used to create new Session objects.

You can also access the session of existing pages by using the session property of webContents which is a property of BrowserWindow.

const BrowserWindow = require('electron').BrowserWindow;

var win = new BrowserWindow({ width: 800, height: 600 });
win.loadURL("http://github.com");

var ses = win.webContents.session;

Methods

The session module has the following methods:

session.fromPartition(partition)

• partition String

Returns a new Session instance from partition string.

If partition starts with persist:, the page will use a persistent session available to all pages in the app with the same partition. if there is no persist: prefix, the page will use an in-memory session. If the partition is empty then default session of the app will be returned.

Properties

The session module has the following properties:

session.defaultSession

Returns the default session object of the app.

Class: Session

You can create a Session object in the session module:

const session = require('electron').session;

var ses = session.fromPartition('persist:name');

Instance Events

The following events are available on instances of Session:

Event: 'will-download'

• event Event
• item DownloadItem
• webContents WebContents

Emitted when Electron is about to download item in webContents.

Calling event.preventDefault() will cancel the download.

session.defaultSession.on('will-download', function(event, item, webContents) {
  event.preventDefault();
  require('request')(item.getURL(), function(data) {
    require('fs').writeFileSync('/somewhere', data);
  });
});

Instance Methods

The following methods are available on instances of Session:

ses.cookies

The cookies gives you ability to query and modify cookies. For example:

// Query all cookies.
session.defaultSession.cookies.get({}, function(error, cookies) {
  console.log(cookies);
});

// Query all cookies associated with a specific url.
session.defaultSession.cookies.get({ url : "http://www.github.com" }, function(error, cookies) {
  console.log(cookies);
});

// Set a cookie with the given cookie data;
// may overwrite equivalent cookies if they exist.
var cookie = { url : "http://www.github.com", name : "dummy_name", value : "dummy" };
session.defaultSession.cookies.set(cookie, function(error) {
  if (error)
    console.error(error);
});

ses.cookies.get(filter, callback)

• filter Object
  • url String optional - Retrieves cookies which are associated with url. Empty implies retrieving cookies of all urls.
  • name String optional - Filters cookies by name.
  • domain String optional - Retrieves cookies whose domains match or are subdomains of domains
  • path String optional - Retrieves cookies whose path matches path.
  • secure Boolean optional - Filters cookies by their Secure property.
  • session Boolean optional - Filters out session or persistent cookies.
• callback Function

Sends a request to get all cookies matching details, callback will be called with callback(error, cookies) on complete.

cookies is an Array of cookie objects.

• cookie Object
  • name String - The name of the cookie.
  • value String - The value of the cookie.
  • domain String - The domain of the cookie.
  • hostOnly String - Whether the cookie is a host-only cookie.
  • path String - The path of the cookie.
  • secure Boolean - Whether the cookie is marked as secure.
  • httpOnly Boolean - Whether the cookie is marked as HTTP only.
  • session Boolean - Whether the cookie is a session cookie or a persistent cookie with an expiration date.
  • expirationDate Double optional - The expiration date of the cookie as the number of seconds since the UNIX epoch. Not provided for session cookies.

ses.cookies.set(details, callback)

• details Object
  • url String - Retrieves cookies which are associated with url
  • name String - The name of the cookie. Empty by default if omitted.
  • value String - The value of the cookie. Empty by default if omitted.
  • domain String - The domain of the cookie. Empty by default if omitted.
  • path String - The path of the cookie. Empty by default if omitted.
  • secure Boolean - Whether the cookie should be marked as Secure. Defaults to false.
  • session Boolean - Whether the cookie should be marked as HttpOnly. Defaults to false.
  • expirationDate Double - The expiration date of the cookie as the number of seconds since the UNIX epoch. If omitted, the cookie becomes a session cookie.
• callback Function

Sets the cookie with details, callback will be called with callback(error) on complete.

ses.cookies.remove(url, name, callback)

• url String - The URL associated with the cookie.
• name String - The name of cookie to remove.
• callback Function

Removes the cookies matching url and name, callback will called with callback() on complete.

ses.clearCache(callback)

• callback Function - Called when operation is done

Clears the session’s HTTP cache.

ses.clearStorageData([options, ]callback)

• options Object (optional)
  • origin String - Should follow window.location.origin’s representation scheme://host:port.
  • storages Array - The types of storages to clear, can contain: appcache, cookies, filesystem, indexdb, local storage, shadercache, websql, serviceworkers
  • quotas Array - The types of quotas to clear, can contain: temporary, persistent, syncable.
• callback Function - Called when operation is done.

Clears the data of web storages.

ses.setProxy(config, callback)

• config String
• callback Function - Called when operation is done.

If config is a PAC url, it is used directly otherwise config is parsed based on the following rules indicating which proxies to use for the session.

config = scheme-proxies[";"<scheme-proxies>]
scheme-proxies = [<url-scheme>"="]<proxy-uri-list>
url-scheme = "http" | "https" | "ftp" | "socks"
proxy-uri-list = <proxy-uri>[","<proxy-uri-list>]
proxy-uri = [<proxy-scheme>"://"]<proxy-host>[":"<proxy-port>]

  For example:
       "http=foopy:80;ftp=foopy2"  -- use HTTP proxy "foopy:80" for http://
                                      URLs, and HTTP proxy "foopy2:80" for
                                      ftp:// URLs.
       "foopy:80"                  -- use HTTP proxy "foopy:80" for all URLs.
       "foopy:80,bar,direct://"    -- use HTTP proxy "foopy:80" for all URLs,
                                      failing over to "bar" if "foopy:80" is
                                      unavailable, and after that using no
                                      proxy.
       "socks4://foopy"            -- use SOCKS v4 proxy "foopy:1080" for all
                                      URLs.
       "http=foopy,socks5://bar.com -- use HTTP proxy "foopy" for http URLs,
                                      and fail over to the SOCKS5 proxy
                                      "bar.com" if "foopy" is unavailable.
       "http=foopy,direct://       -- use HTTP proxy "foopy" for http URLs,
                                      and use no proxy if "foopy" is
                                      unavailable.
       "http=foopy;socks=foopy2   --  use HTTP proxy "foopy" for http URLs,
                                      and use socks4://foopy2 for all other
                                      URLs.

ses.resolveProxy(url, callback)

• url URL
• callback Function

Resolves the proxy information for url. The callback will be called with callback(proxy) when the request is performed.

ses.setDownloadPath(path)

• path String - The download location

Sets download saving directory. By default, the download directory will be the Downloads under the respective app folder.

ses.enableNetworkEmulation(options)

• options Object
  • offline Boolean - Whether to emulate network outage.
  • latency Double - RTT in ms
  • downloadThroughput Double - Download rate in Bps
  • uploadThroughput Double - Upload rate in Bps

Emulates network with the given configuration for the session.

// To emulate a GPRS connection with 50kbps throughput and 500 ms latency.
window.webContents.session.enableNetworkEmulation({
    latency: 500,
    downloadThroughput: 6400,
    uploadThroughput: 6400
});

// To emulate a network outage.
window.webContents.session.enableNetworkEmulation({offline: true});

ses.disableNetworkEmulation()

Disables any network emulation already active for the session. Resets to the original network configuration.

ses.setCertificateVerifyProc(proc)

• proc Function

Sets the certificate verify proc for session, the proc will be called with proc(hostname, certificate, callback) whenever a server certificate verification is requested. Calling callback(true) accepts the certificate, calling callback(false) rejects it.

Calling setCertificateVerifyProc(null) will revert back to default certificate verify proc.

myWindow.webContents.session.setCertificateVerifyProc(function(hostname, cert, callback) {
  if (hostname == 'github.com')
    callback(true);
  else
    callback(false);
});

ses.webRequest

The webRequest API set allows to intercept and modify contents of a request at various stages of its lifetime.

Each API accepts an optional filter and a listener, the listener will be called with listener(details) when the API's event has happened, the details is an object that describes the request. Passing null as listener will unsubscribe from the event.

The filter is an object that has an urls property, which is an Array of URL patterns that will be used to filter out the requests that do not match the URL patterns. If the filter is omitted then all requests will be matched.

For certain events the listener is passed with a callback, which should be called with an response object when listener has done its work.

// Modify the user agent for all requests to the following urls.
var filter = {
  urls: ["https://*.github.com/*", "*://electron.github.io"]
};

session.defaultSession.webRequest.onBeforeSendHeaders(filter, function(details, callback) {
  details.requestHeaders['User-Agent'] = "MyAgent";
  callback({cancel: false, requestHeaders: details.requestHeaders});
});

ses.webRequest.onBeforeRequest([filter, ]listener)

• filter Object
• listener Function

The listener will be called with listener(details, callback) when a request is about to occur.

• details Object
  • id Integer
  • url String
  • method String
  • resourceType String
  • timestamp Double

The callback has to be called with an response object:

• response Object
  • cancel Boolean optional
  • redirectURL String optional - The original request is prevented from being sent or completed, and is instead redirected to the given URL.

ses.webRequest.onBeforeSendHeaders([filter, ]listener)

• filter Object
• listener Function

The listener will be called with listener(details, callback) before sending an HTTP request, once the request headers are available. This may occur after a TCP connection is made to the server, but before any http data is sent.

• details Object
  • id Integer
  • url String
  • method String
  • resourceType String
  • timestamp Double
  • requestHeaders Object

The callback has to be called with an response object:

• response Object
  • cancel Boolean optional
  • requestHeaders Object optional - When provided, request will be made with these headers.

ses.webRequest.onSendHeaders([filter, ]listener)

• filter Object
• listener Function

The listener will be called with listener(details) just before a request is going to be sent to the server, modifications of previous onBeforeSendHeaders response are visible by the time this listener is fired.

• details Object
  • id Integer
  • url String
  • method String
  • resourceType String
  • timestamp Double
  • requestHeaders Object

ses.webRequest.onHeadersReceived([filter,] listener)

• filter Object
• listener Function

The listener will be called with listener(details, callback) when HTTP response headers of a request have been received.

• details Object
  • id String
  • url String
  • method String
  • resourceType String
  • timestamp Double
  • statusLine String
  • statusCode Integer
  • responseHeaders Object

The callback has to be called with an response object:

• response Object
  • cancel Boolean
  • responseHeaders Object optional - When provided, the server is assumed to have responded with these headers.

ses.webRequest.onResponseStarted([filter, ]listener)

• filter Object
• listener Function

The listener will be called with listener(details) when first byte of the response body is received. For HTTP requests, this means that the status line and response headers are available.

• details Object
  • id Integer
  • url String
  • method String
  • resourceType String
  • timestamp Double
  • responseHeaders Object
  • fromCache Boolean - Indicates whether the response was fetched from disk cache.
  • statusCode Integer
  • statusLine String

ses.webRequest.onBeforeRedirect([filter, ]listener)

• filter Object
• listener Function

The listener will be called with listener(details) when a server initiated redirect is about to occur.

• details Object
  • id String
  • url String
  • method String
  • resourceType String
  • timestamp Double
  • redirectURL String
  • statusCode Integer
  • ip String optional - The server IP address that the request was actually sent to.
  • fromCache Boolean
  • responseHeaders Object

ses.webRequest.onCompleted([filter, ]listener)

• filter Object
• listener Function

The listener will be called with listener(details) when a request is completed.

• details Object
  • id Integer
  • url String
  • method String
  • resourceType String
  • timestamp Double
  • responseHeaders Object
  • fromCache Boolean
  • statusCode Integer
  • statusLine String

ses.webRequest.onErrorOccurred([filter, ]listener)

• filter Object
• listener Function

The listener will be called with listener(details) when an error occurs.

• details Object
  • id Integer
  • url String
  • method String
  • resourceType String
  • timestamp Double
  • fromCache Boolean
  • error String - The error description.