Must-Have Test Files for QA Engineers

When you are testing Web Applications you are going to come across various types of input types. Remember that an input type is anywhere the user has to enter in some sort of data.

For the most part, the types of data are always going to be similar. So that means that your test cases and your test data are also going to be similar.

I like to make it easy for myself by having a folder with all my commonly used test data files.

I’m going to share with you all the data files that I must-have and where to find them. The best part is that all the data in this list are either generated by you or are free to use from the internet.

Image Files

You are going to want to have a file for each of the image file types.

Here are the most common ones:

• Gif
• Png
• Jpeg
• Tif

Next, you will want different file sizes. You will want a large variety here since different applications allow a different maximum size.

• 1kb
• 500kb
• 1mb
• 20mb
• >20mb

Now you will want variations of dimensions.

• Square
• Rectangle (width longer than height)
• Rectangle (Height longer than width)
• Really tall and skinny
• Really wide and skinny

Another option for images is transparency. Some images come with transparent backgrounds.

Where can you get all these images?

You can get royalty free images from Unsplash.

I typically use a free online image editor like Pixlr to modify the files to suit my needs.

Video Files

Video files come in these common formats:

• .MOV
• .MPEG4
• .MP4
• .AVI
• .WMV
• .MPEGPS
• .FLV
• 3GPP
• WebM
• DNxHR
• ProRes
• CineForm
• HEVC (h265)

Unlike images, finding videos in the correct formats will require a little more work.

You can find stock videos at sites like Pexels. Once you have the video files you can convert them to the desired format.

Next up is the files sizes. Find videos of various sizes to meet your needs.

Another type of file to consider would be videos with different resolutions. Do you need SD, HD, or 4K videos?

Document Files

For documents, you will just need to worry about the document size and format.

Let me list out the most common ones:

• DOC/ DOCX
• ODT
• RTF
• TXT
• PDF
• XLS / XLSX
• CSV

Obviously, this is not a comprehensive list of file, but it is a good starting point. Each website or project will have its own special needs.

Use the list above as a starting point and add as many files as you come across while working. Over time you should have enough files to meet most situations.