[Feature]: Detect and Remove Obsolete Snapshots in Playwright

[Qambar]

🚀 Feature Request

🚀 Feature Request: Detect and Remove Obsolete Snapshots in Playwright

Problem Statement

When using Playwright's Visual Regression Testing (toHaveScreenshot()), old or unused snapshot files accumulate over time. Currently, Playwright does not have a built-in way to:

• Detect obsolete snapshots that are no longer referenced in tests.
• Automatically delete these stale snapshots.

This leads to bloated repositories with unnecessary files, making it harder to manage snapshot updates efficiently.

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Proposed Solution

Introduce a new CLI flag, such as:

npx playwright test --cleanup-snapshots

Example

Currently, developers update snapshots using:

npx playwright test --update-snapshots

However, this only updates existing snapshots and does not remove obsolete ones.

With the proposed feature, developers could run:

npx playwright test --cleanup-snapshots

Motivation

Over time, as tests are renamed or removed, unused snapshot files accumulate in __snapshots__/, leading to:

• Wasted storage: Unused snapshots bloat the repository.
• Slower updates: The more snapshots exist, the longer updates take.
• Harder maintenance: Developers have to manually clean snapshots.

By introducing a --cleanup-snapshots flag, Playwright can automatically remove outdated snapshots, improving efficiency and test maintainability.

This feature aligns with Playwright’s goal of providing developer-friendly and scalable test automation. 🚀

[QIAOYANGvg]

I also strongly agree with adding this feature. Screenshots have indeed become more and more difficult to maintain over time.