How can I extract data from an iFrame?

Many older websites still use iFrames to embed a webpage inside another. When you are recording a task, if you interact with an element on the page that is within an iFrame, you will see the error:

"This element is inside an iFrame. iFrame interactions are not supported in Browse AI recordings yet."

In this article, we will talk about a workaround for this limitation that works most of the time.

How to find a direct link to the webpage inside the iFrame

Most of the time, the webpage inside an iFrame has a URL through which it can be accessed directly without the use of iFrames. In order to find this direct link, you need to 

1. Close the recording window, 
2. Open the webpage in a regular Chrome window, 
3. Right-click somewhere in the iFrame (the same area where you clicked and got the Browse AI error),

4. Press Inspect. This will open Chrome Inspector panel and highlight the element you right-clicked on:

   

5. Scan the lines above the highlighted line until you find the line that starts with `<iframe `:

   

6. In that line, there is usually a `src="..."` attribute. The text inside the quotation marks in front of `src=` is highlighted blue. Right-click on this text and press Open in new tab.Note: If you can't find `src`, this work-around probably would not work for this iFrame.

Voilà! You just opened the page inside the iFrame directly. Now you can just record a task on this page and train your new Browse AI robot.

In our experience, this work-around works for over 95% of iFrames people come across. If your use-case falls within the other 5%, but it's an important use case and there is a large volume of data that can only be accessed through the iFrame, contact our support team and they will do their best to assist.