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How to Bulk Screenshot URLs and Skip Pages That Return 404 Errors

A status-aware Playwright workflow can capture a URL list while skipping 404 responses and logging redirects, other statuses, and transport failures separately.
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Use browser automation to visit each URL, inspect the main navigation response, and take a screenshot only when its status is not 404. In Playwright, a 404 is a completed HTTP response—not a failed request—so check the navigation response directly rather than relying on a request-failure event.

Build a status-aware bulk screenshot workflow

Process the URL list one address at a time or with bounded concurrency. For each input, validate the URL, navigate to it, inspect the response for the main document, apply your status policy, and record what happened. This keeps an HTTP 404 distinct from a timeout, DNS failure, or other navigation exception.

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  1. Load URLs from a text file, CSV, spreadsheet export, or another source. Validate that each has an http or https scheme.
  2. Navigate with a browser automation tool and retain the response for the main document.
  3. Skip the screenshot when that response has status 404. Decide separately what to do with statuses such as 401, 403, 429, and 5xx.
  4. For pages allowed by your policy, capture the screenshot and save it with a stable filename.
  5. Log the submitted URL, final URL, status, outcome, and any exception for every input; keep an index mapping image files back to their source URLs.

Playwright documents page navigation and screenshots, and explains that HTTP error responses such as 404 and 503 still complete as HTTP responses. They do not inherently throw from navigation or trigger requestfailed. See the Playwright Page API and Playwright Request API.

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Implement the 404 check with Playwright

The key is to inspect the response returned by page.goto(). This compact Node.js example reads one URL per line from urls.txt, skips 404s, captures other responses by default, and writes a CSV-style run log. It uses sequential processing so it is easy to adapt; add bounded concurrency only after you have chosen appropriate limits for your own sites and environment.

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import { chromium } from 'playwright';
import { readFile, mkdir, appendFile } from 'node:fs/promises';

const urls = (await readFile('urls.txt', 'utf8'))
  .split(/r?n/)
  .map(line => line.trim())
  .filter(Boolean);

await mkdir('shots', { recursive: true });
const browser = await chromium.launch();
const page = await browser.newPage();
const log = ['input_url,final_url,status,outcome,detail'];

function csv(value = '') {
  return `"${String(value).replaceAll('"', '""')}"`;
}

for (const inputUrl of urls) {
  let parsed;
  try {
    parsed = new URL(inputUrl);
    if (!['http:', 'https:'].includes(parsed.protocol)) {
      throw new Error('URL must use http or https');
    }
  } catch (error) {
    log.push([inputUrl, '', '', 'invalid_url', error.message].map(csv).join(','));
    continue;
  }

  try {
    const response = await page.goto(inputUrl, {
      waitUntil: 'domcontentloaded',
      timeout: 30000
    });

    if (!response) {
      log.push([inputUrl, page.url(), '', 'no_main_response', 'Navigation returned no response'].map(csv).join(','));
      continue;
    }

    const status = response.status();
    const finalUrl = page.url();
    if (status === 404) {
      log.push([inputUrl, finalUrl, status, 'skipped_404', ''].map(csv).join(','));
      continue;
    }

    // Replace this filename scheme if your inputs may collide.
    const filename = `${String(urls.indexOf(inputUrl) + 1).padStart(4, '0')}-${parsed.hostname.replace(/[^a-zA-Z0-9.-]/g, '_')}.png`;
    await page.screenshot({ path: `shots/${filename}`, fullPage: true });
    log.push([inputUrl, finalUrl, status, 'captured', filename].map(csv).join(','));
  } catch (error) {
    log.push([inputUrl, page.url(), '', 'navigation_or_capture_error', error.message].map(csv).join(','));
  }
}

await appendFile('run-log.csv', `${log.join('n')}n`);
await browser.close();

Install Playwright and its browser before running the script: npm install playwright, then npx playwright install chromium. Save the code as an ES module, for example bulk-shot.mjs, place one URL per line in urls.txt, and run node bulk-shot.mjs. The example waits for DOM content rather than every network request; choose a wait condition appropriate to the pages you capture.

Make filenames collision-safe

The sample uses a line index and hostname, which avoids many collisions but does not encode the full URL. If a list can contain duplicate URLs or multiple paths on the same host, use a unique sequence number or a hash of the complete input URL and retain the input-to-file mapping in the log. Sanitize any URL-derived filename components before writing them.

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Choose the status policy deliberately

This example skips only 404 and captures other HTTP responses. That is a policy choice, not a claim that every other status represents a useful page. You may instead skip or flag 401, 403, 429, or 5xx responses; make those rules explicit in code and preserve the actual status in the log. Do not classify a navigation exception as a 404 when no HTTP response was received.

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Handle redirects, failures, and screenshot timing

Redirects

A redirect causes a subsequent request. This workflow applies the 404 rule to the response returned for the completed main navigation, ordinarily the final response after redirects, while recording both the submitted URL and page.url(). If your requirement is to skip when any redirect hop—not just the final destination—returns a particular status, collect and inspect the redirect chain separately using Playwright’s request/response events.

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HTTP errors versus transport errors

A 404 means the browser received an HTTP response saying the requested resource was not found. A timeout, DNS failure, TLS problem, or unreachable host may leave the browser without a response. Record those as navigation or transport failures, not as 404s. Playwright’s request documentation describes HTTP error responses as completed requests; requestfailed is not a reliable detector for them.

Wait conditions and dynamic pages

The right capture moment depends on the site. domcontentloaded is a practical starting point, but it does not guarantee that client-rendered content, lazy-loaded images, or animations are finished. Use a selector wait, a deliberate delay, or a network-idle condition where the target pages justify it. There is no universal wait setting established for every site, and unnecessarily long waits slow large batches.

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Scale batches without hiding errors

  • Use bounded concurrency rather than launching an unlimited number of pages. The suitable level depends on your machine, browser workload, and the sites being visited; the cited documentation does not establish a universal batch size.
  • Set navigation timeouts and define retry rules for transient failures. A retry may help with temporary transport or server issues, but do not convert a repeated exception into an assumed 404.
  • Keep a per-input record of requested URL, final URL, HTTP status if available, captured or skipped outcome, filename, and exception details.
  • Review a run summary that separates screenshots captured, 404s skipped, other HTTP statuses, invalid inputs, and navigation or capture failures.
  • Test the chosen behavior on a small set of representative URLs, including redirects and known error pages, before running a large list.

Other ways to orchestrate multiple captures

For developers who want a managed capture endpoint, ScreenshotNeo is the first service to consider here: it removes consent banners, popups, and chat widgets before capture, bills only clean shots, and its lowest paid plan is $5. A screenshot API can reduce browser infrastructure work, but confirm that its batch and status behavior matches your exact 404-skip requirement before relying on it.

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Playwright gives you explicit per-navigation status handling and screenshot control. shot-scraper supports multi-URL capture from a configuration file, but the cited README does not establish conditional 404 skipping; pair it with a status-aware wrapper if that behavior is required. A reviewed hosted batch API documents batch submission, tracking, errors, and rate limits, but the available documentation does not establish that it conditionally omits 404 pages. Verify current limits and handling with the vendor before choosing it for this workflow.

Or skip the browser setup

ScreenshotNeo’s one-call endpoint returns an image or PDF, but a capture API call by itself does not replace the explicit per-URL 404 decision shown above. To guarantee that your batch omits 404s, retain a status-aware check or verify the service’s handling before using it for that requirement.

cURL example (see the ScreenshotNeo API documentation):

curl -G "https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot" -d access_key=YOUR_API_KEY --data-urlencode url=https://stripe.com -o shot.webp

ScreenshotNeo accepts and removes cookie/consent banners, newsletter popups, and chat widgets before the shot; bot checks, blank pages, and failed loads are not billed; an MCP server lets AI agents take screenshots; and 1,000 screenshots a month are free with no card, with paid plans starting at $5 for 3,000. Sign up for the free plan.

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Troubleshooting

  • A 404 page was captured. Confirm that your code checks response.status() from the main navigation before calling screenshot(). A request-failure listener will not catch normal HTTP 404 responses.
  • A page was skipped without a status. Navigation may have returned no main response or thrown before an HTTP response arrived. Log the exception and classify it separately from HTTP statuses.
  • A redirect ends on a missing page. Compare the submitted URL with the final URL and apply the policy to the final navigation response. Inspect intermediate redirect responses separately if they matter to your rule.
  • The screenshot misses page content. Replace the generic wait condition with a site-appropriate selector or delay, and account for lazy-loaded content where needed.
  • Different URLs overwrite one another. Use collision-resistant filenames, such as a unique index or URL hash, and preserve a mapping in the run log.
  • A large run stalls or overloads the machine. Reduce concurrency, use bounded batches and timeouts, and review failures separately from HTTP status outcomes.

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