How will you login into a site if it shows an authentication popup for username and password?

Use WebDriverWait with ExpectedConditions.alertIsPresent() and then call alert.authenticateUsing(new UserAndPassword()) to handle HTTP auth popups.

Answer

Handling Authentication Popup in Selenium

HTTP Basic Authentication popups (the browser-native username/password dialog) are not regular HTML elements — they are OS-level dialogs that Selenium handles differently.

Method 1 — Embed credentials in URL (simplest):

Java

// Format: http://username:password@website.com
driver.get("http://admin:password@the-internet.herokuapp.com/basic_auth");

Method 2 — WebDriverWait + authenticateUsing:

Java

WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, Duration.ofSeconds(10));
Alert alert = wait.until(ExpectedConditions.alertIsPresent());
alert.authenticateUsing(new UserAndPassword("username", "password"));

Full example:

Java

import org.openqa.selenium.Alert;
import org.openqa.selenium.security.UserAndPassword;
import org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.ExpectedConditions;
import org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.WebDriverWait;

@Test
public void handleAuthPopup() {
    driver.get("https://the-internet.herokuapp.com/basic_auth");

    WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, Duration.ofSeconds(10));

    // Wait for the auth popup to appear
    Alert alert = wait.until(ExpectedConditions.alertIsPresent());

    // Pass credentials
    alert.authenticateUsing(new UserAndPassword("admin", "admin"));

    // Verify successful login
    Assert.assertTrue(driver.getPageSource().contains("Congratulations"));
}

Method 3 — ChromeOptions with authentication extension:

Java

// For newer Chrome versions, use DevTools Protocol
ChromeDriver chromeDriver = (ChromeDriver) driver;
Map<String, Object> params = new HashMap<>();
params.put("origin", "https://the-internet.herokuapp.com");
params.put("username", "admin");
params.put("password", "admin");
chromeDriver.executeCdpCommand("Network.setExtraHTTPHeaders", params);

Method 4 — AutoIT (for Windows native dialogs): When the popup is truly a Windows OS dialog (not a browser dialog), use AutoIT to handle it externally.

Comparison:

Method	Works for	Notes
URL credentials	HTTP Basic Auth	Simplest approach
`authenticateUsing()`	Browser auth dialogs	Standard Selenium way
AutoIT/Sikuli	OS-level popups	Requires external tool

Key point: Since there will be a popup for logging in, we need to use the explicit command and verify if the alert is actually present. Only if the alert is present, we pass the username and password credentials.

Follow AutomateQA

YouTube Instagram