Please tell me how to reliably control the file selection dialog in a browser.

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Posted on by samoedo

Hello,

I have a question about controlling the dialog that appears when selecting a local file in the Edge or Chrome browser.

Depending on the state of the desktop, I can't control it well, so if anyone knows a more reliable method than mine, I would appreciate your guidance.

I always use the "UI Automation" action to control the dialog. I wait for the dialog to appear, enter the full path of the specified file in the file name, and press the open (or save) button.

In the Edge browser, I prepare UI elements with selectors like the following:

> window[Class="#32770"][Process="msedge"]

> window[Class="#32770"][Process="msedge"] > combobox[Class="ComboBox"][Name="ファイル名(N):"] > edit[Class="Edit"]

> window[Class="#32770"][Process="msedge"] > button[Class="Button"][Name="開く(O)"]

Basically, there is no problem, but I can't retrieve it when multiple Edge browsers are running on the screen.

Avoiding that situation solves the problem, but sometimes I want to display multiple windows to do some work. Is there a good method for this?

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Power Automate Desktop

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SaiRT14 1,992 Super User 2025 Season 1 on at

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pls try the following:

Add more attributes to the selector for better specificity: window[Class="#32770"][Process="msedge"][Title="Open"]

Before triggering the file dialog, capture the title of the parent browser window. Adjust your selector to target dialogs owned by the window with the captured title window[Class="#32770"][Process="msedge"][OwnerTitle="ParentBrowserWindowTitle"]

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samoedo 24 on at

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Thank you for your response.

(I couldn't figure out how to reply, so I'm replying to myself.)

Since selectors like Title and OwnerTitle were not available as options in Power Automate Desktop, I adjusted the parent selector to also check the Name attribute based on your advice.

:desktop > window[Name="Page Title"][Process="msedge"]

By specifying the page that has the "Open" dialog, it works well even if multiple browsers are open. Making the Page Title part a variable and inserting the title obtained with the "Get details of web page" action allows for dynamic handling, which is very convenient.

Thank you for the advice.

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Hairy_Drumroll 251 on at

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Yes, the key is adjust the 'parent' selector.

I had to set mine as
:desktop > window[Name^="%MyPageTitle%"][Process="msedge"]

This ensured that the trailling text such as " - Microsoft Edge" didn't stuff it up.

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