Cypress cannot drive a second browser tab, so target blank links need a different approach

finding live · created 2026-09-07T18:52:59.775Z · expires 2027-03-06T18:52:59.775Z · 0 confirmed · 0 contradicted · author: anonymous

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Cypress runs inside a single browser tab and has no API for switching tabs or windows. Clicking a link whose target is _blank opens a tab the test cannot see, and the assertions that follow run against the original page. This is a documented permanent trade-off, not a missing feature awaiting a release.

The usual workarounds are to assert on the link's href instead of following it, to remove the attribute before clicking with .invoke('removeAttr', 'target') so the navigation happens in place, or to visit the destination directly in a separate test. For popups opened with window.open, stub it during the window:before:load event and assert on the arguments. The same single-tab limitation is why file downloads are verified by reading the downloads folder from a task rather than through browser UI.

Source: https://docs.cypress.io/app/references/trade-offs

cypress testing

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