How to find Element by Tag Name using Selenium?

Find Element by Tag Name

To find an HTML Element by tag name using Selenium in Python, call find_element() method and pass By.TAG_NAME as the first argument, and the tag name (of the HTML Element we need to find) as the second argument.

find_element(By.TAG_NAME, "tag_name_value")

If there are multiple HTML Elements with the same given tag name, then find_element() returns the first HTML Element of those.

1. There is only one element by given tag name

In the following example, we have an HTML page with a div element. In the Python program, we will find the HTML element whose tag name is 'div', using find_element() method, and print that element to the console.

HTML Webpage

<html>
 <body>
  <p>This is a sample paragraph.</p>
  <div>Hello World!</div>
 </body>
</html>
Copy

Python Program (Selenium)

from selenium import webdriver
from webdriver_manager.chrome import ChromeDriverManager
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.service import Service as ChromeService
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By

# Setup chrome driver
driver = webdriver.Chrome(service=ChromeService(ChromeDriverManager().install()))

# Navigate to the url
driver.get('https://pythonexamples.org/tmp/selenium/index-46.html')

# Find element by Tag Name
my_div = driver.find_element(By.TAG_NAME, 'div')
print(my_div.get_attribute("outerHTML"))

# Close the driver
driver.quit()

Output

<div>Hello World!</div>

2. There are multiple elements by given tag name

Now, let us consider the scenario where there are multiple HTML Elements with the given tag name. We will use find_element() function to find the first element whose tag name is 'div'.

Even through there are two elements with the same given tag name, find_element() returns only the first element of those.

index.html

<html>
 <body>
  <p>This is a sample paragraph.</p>
  <div>Hello World!</div>
  <div>Welcome.</div>
 </body>
</html>
Copy

Python Program (Selenium)

from selenium import webdriver
from webdriver_manager.chrome import ChromeDriverManager
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.service import Service as ChromeService
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By

# Setup chrome driver
driver = webdriver.Chrome(service=ChromeService(ChromeDriverManager().install()))

# Navigate to the url
driver.get('https://pythonexamples.org/tmp/selenium/index-47.html')

# Find element by Tag Name
my_div = driver.find_element(By.TAG_NAME, 'div')
print(my_div.get_attribute("outerHTML"))

# Close the driver
driver.quit()

Output

<div>Hello World!</div>

3. There is no element by given tag name

If there is no element by given tag name, find_element() function raises NoSuchElementException.

In the following example, we have taken an HTML page with no div elements. When we try to find element by the tag name 'div', using find_element() function, the function throws NoSuchElementException.

HTML Webpage

<html>
 <body>
  <p>This is a sample paragraph.</p>
 </body>
</html>
Copy

Python Program (Selenium)

from selenium import webdriver
from webdriver_manager.chrome import ChromeDriverManager
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.service import Service as ChromeService
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By

# Setup chrome driver
driver = webdriver.Chrome(service=ChromeService(ChromeDriverManager().install()))

# Navigate to the url
driver.get('https://pythonexamples.org/tmp/selenium/index-48.html')

# Find element by Tag Name
my_div = driver.find_element(By.TAG_NAME, 'div')
print(my_div.get_attribute("outerHTML"))

# Close the driver
driver.quit()

Output

    raise exception_class(message, screen, stacktrace)
selenium.common.exceptions.NoSuchElementException: Message: no such element: Unable to locate element: {"method":"tag name","selector":"div"}

Summary

In this Python Selenium tutorial, we learned how to find an element by tag name in webpage, using Selenium.

Quiz on Selenium

Q1. What is a web driver in Selenium Python?

Not answered

Q2. What is the method used to find web elements in Selenium Python?

Not answered

Q3. What is the method used to navigate back to the previous page in Selenium Python?

Not answered

Q4. What is the method used to switch to a different frame in Selenium Python?

Not answered

Q5. What is the method used to select a value from a drop-down list in Selenium Python?

Not answered
Code copied to clipboard successfully 👍