Force Google Recaptcha Challenge

Question

Is it possible to set some flag in my browser so that I always get the RECAPTHCA image challenges? Sometimes when you click on the "I am not a robot" button, it gives you a pop up challenge with something like "Click all the images which contain a car", but sometimes it just checks off the box and takes your word for the fact that you're not a robot.

I would like to test the UI of my tool both on a desktop and on mobile, and make sure that the challenge pop up shows up and interacts well with other elements of the page.

In other words, as a developer, I want Google to think that I'm a robot so that it always gives me the visual challenge.

Is there any way to force this behavior?

Note: I've done some research and was unable to find any relevant questions or blog posts that might yield an answer.

• Force Google recaptcha to use simple checkbox click challenge asks for a way to force Google to NOT use the visual challenge, only the checkbox
• How to force recheck user with reCAPTCHA? talks about forcing a recheck of some kind, but has no answers
• https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/recaptcha/2ed-s3KK3Do actually asks my same question, but users did not seem keen on providing answers, with one user just suggesting not to use RECAPTCHA at all!
• https://developers.google.com/recaptcha/docs/faq#id-like-to-run-automated-tests-with-recaptcha-v2-what-should-i-do is straight from Google, but it does exactly the opposite of what I want - it sets your site up such that the captcha appears on the page but is actually a test captcha that always lets you pass, and NEVER gives you the challenge. I want the exact inverse of this.

Answer 1

The methods told here should generally work, but there is no guarantee of the same. There is a very easy way to guarantee that Google reCAPTCHA challenge always show up. All you need to do is to add a custom BOT device in developer tools and then use the same to test.

1. In Chrome Dev Tools, open Settings. Open Devices after that.
2. Add a custom device with any name and set User Agent String to Googlebot/2.1
3. Finally, in Device Mode, at the left of the top bar, choose the custom device that you created (the default is Responsive).

Thanks to the SO users who had put it up in the answer and follow-up comment here.

Answer 2

I too have been looking for similar functionality. While I have not found a code-based solution to force the challenge, I have found a fairly reliable hack.

Grab a VPN tool (I happen to use IP Vanish), then connect to a remote server (I've had success connecting to China). Then, open up a private/incognito window and fill out your form.

From my testing, the combination of the remote IP and the blank user session triggers the challenge.

Answer 3

Here are a few things you can try. In my experience all of them will increase your chances of getting a challenge.

1. Log in at https://www.google.com/recaptcha/admin and edit your reCAPTCHA settings. Under Security Preference choose Most Secure.
2. Use a VPN + incognito mode (as suggested here)
3. If you're using the invisible reCAPTCHA, I found that using explicit rendering + immediately calling grecaptcha.execute() after grecaptcha.render() will usually trigger the challenge. I suspect this is because Google's AI expects a user interaction of some kind to trigger grecaptcha.execute() and not the onloadCallback itself.

Answer 4

2022 and later

It seems to be increasingly harder to trigger the recaptcha challenge of the invisible recaptcha. Using the UserAgent of a bot, going into incognito mode is not enough anymore. A VPN might work, but I do not trust free VPN services.

I am however still able to trigger the recaptcha challenge when I'm only using the keyboard while filling in the form fields and pressing the submit button with the enter key. It seems like the Google Recaptcha is now also following your mouse movements to determine if you are a real user. Make sure to never hover your mouse cursor over the webpage and only use the keyboard.

Answer 5

I use reCAPTCHA's SDK in Android, and I also encounter the need to force validation when testing. I tried it many times. At last, I turned off or turned on the flight mode, which can be verified in the retest. I guess it may be that Google put my IP on the white list in the background, so I passed the verification without any challenge.

Answer 6

That should be possible, because when LinkedIn forcefully logged out an user for excessive usage, it showed captcha on next login, and there always was the challenge.

Unfortunately, LinkedIn switched from Recaptcha to another provider just few days ago, so I cannot just look up into their JavaScript code. It is what makes me believe that Recaptcha does have an undocumented option to force the challenge.

Answer 7

I was looking for something like this and after some research plus trial & error what worked for me is to use the invisible recaptcha and invoke the challenge with JS.

After you have loaded the recaptcha script on your page then do

grecaptcha.execute()

and the challenge might be invoked.