Screenshot a Page Behind a Login in n8n
A plain screenshot of a gated page just captures the login screen. Pass your session cookies to the Rendex node and it renders the page as the authenticated you — perfect for archiving internal dashboards, gated reports, and members-only views.
Last updated 2026-07-21
The Problem
Plenty of the pages worth capturing sit behind a login: an analytics dashboard, an internal report, a paid members area. A normal screenshot service only ever sees the sign-in wall, and scripting a full login flow inside n8n is brittle and credential-heavy.
The Solution
Grab your session cookie from the browser's dev tools and pass it to Rendex as a cookies array (or use an auth header for token-based apps). Rendex sets the cookie before navigation and renders the page as the logged-in session. Add a Wait For Selector on a post-login element so the capture only fires once you're really in.
How the Workflow Runs
Trigger
A manual run or schedule starts the capture
Rendex + cookies
Set session cookies, wait for a post-login element, capture
Archive / notify
Store the image or send it on — like any capture
Input → Rendered Output
Rendered by Rendex
What You Need
- A Rendex API key on a paid plan, Basic or above (cookies/headers are Basic+)
- n8n with the Rendex community node installed
- Your session cookie name + value (from the browser's dev tools) or an auth token
- The URL of the authenticated page, and a post-login selector to wait for
What This Recipe Uses
Session cookies
Pass a cookies array and Rendex sets it before navigation, rendering the page as your logged-in session — no login flow to script.
Header auth too
Token-based app? Send an Authorization header instead of cookies via Custom Headers — same authenticated capture.
Waits until you're in
Wait For Selector on a post-login element makes the capture fire only after authentication resolves — no login-screen screenshots.
Build It
{
"parameters": {
"resource": "screenshot",
"operation": "capture",
"source": "url",
"url": "https://yourapp.com/dashboard",
"format": "png",
"binaryPropertyName": "data",
"additionalOptions": {
"cookies": "[{\"name\":\"session\",\"value\":\"YOUR_SESSION_VALUE\",\"domain\":\".yourapp.com\"}]",
"fullPage": true,
"waitForSelector": ".dashboard-loaded"
}
},
"name": "Rendex — Capture (authenticated)",
"type": "n8n-nodes-rendex.rendex",
"typeVersion": 1
}100 free API calls/month — no credit card required. Get your API key and start building.
Use this when the thing you need a picture of lives behind authentication — a KPI dashboard you archive weekly, a gated report you attach to an email, a members-only page you monitor. The trick is that you don't automate the login itself; you reuse an existing session by passing its cookie, which keeps the workflow simple and avoids storing a username and password in n8n. For token-based apps, a custom Authorization header works the same way. Set a Wait For Selector to an element that only appears after auth so the capture doesn't race the redirect. Cookies and custom headers are a Starter-and-up capability; once captured, the image flows into Drive, S3, email, or Slack like any other Rendex screenshot.