PNTR
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Testing guide

Test email flows with Selenium without opening Gmail

Selenium recommends using an email provider API instead of automating Gmail or another mailbox interface. PNTR separates those jobs: WebDriver exercises your application, while a small API poll retrieves the message.

Explore PNTR's disposable email for developers
Create the Selenium inbox
TypeScript inbox helper/TypeScript
import { PntrTestKit } from "@pntr/testkit";const hostname = process.env.PNTR_EMAIL_HOSTNAME!;const pntr = new PntrTestKit({ token: process.env.PNTR_TOKEN! });export function waitForEmail(recipient: string, since: Date) {  return pntr.waitForEmail(hostname, {    recipient,    since,    timeoutSeconds: 20,  });}

Setup

  1. 1

    Prepare the PNTR inbox

    Create an email-enabled PNTR hostname and generate an API token. Put PNTR_TOKEN and the full hostname in the test runner's secret environment, not in the repository.

  2. 2

    Generate a per-test address

    Create an address such as selenium- plus a UUID at your PNTR subdomain. No inbox setup is required for each local part because PNTR receives them all.

  3. 3

    Drive only your application with Selenium

    Enter the generated address, submit the form, and assert the application's immediate success state with WebDriver's normal explicit waits.

  4. 4

    Poll PNTR outside the browser

    Use @pntr/testkit in the Node process to wait for the exact recipient. API waiting is faster and less fragile than opening a third-party mailbox with WebDriver.

  5. 5

    Continue the browser journey

    Fetch the matching email body, extract the expected link or code, then return to Selenium to complete the verification flow and assert the final signed-in state.

Before you ship

Do not automate a Gmail or Outlook login as part of this test. It introduces another site's authentication, selectors, and anti-bot behavior into a flow that only needs the delivered message.

Primary documentation