How to close the whole browser window by keeping the webDriver active?

Question

In my batch execution, multiple browsers with multiple tabs are getting opened for first scenario. I wanted to close all these browsers before starting second scenario.

Answer 1

You should understand difference between driver.close() and driver.quit()

driver.close() and driver.quit() are two different methods for closing the browser session in Selenium WebDriver. Understanding both of them and knowing when to use which method is important in your test execution.

driver.close() – It closes the the browser window on which the focus is set.

driver.quit() – It basically calls driver.dispose method which in turn closes all the browser windows and ends the WebDriver session gracefully.

You should use driver.quit() whenever you want to end the program. It will close all opened browser window and terminates the WebDriver session. If you do not use driver.quit at the end of program, WebDriver session will not close properly and files would not be cleared off memory. This may result in memory leak errors.

In your case you have to use driver.close() which will close current window and keeps driver active.

Just to add - if there is only browser window open and you use driver.close(), it will quit the webdriver session. The webdriver will not stay active.