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How do I delete cookies?

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Summary: Cookies can be used to save your password, or your logged in state, when you visit some web sites. I'll walk through clearing them.

My computer saves my email password. How can I make it to forget the password. i.e. How can I delete the cookies?

Most saved passwords are saved as cookies; it's by far the most common approach. Web sites do this to avoid forcing you to re-login for every page you visit, or longer as a convenience if you tell it to "save password".

How you delete cookies depends on your browser. I'll walk you through both Firefox and Internet Explorer 8.

Internet Explorer 8

Click on the Tools Menu, and then the Internet Options item:

Internet Explorer Internet Options dialog highlighting the Browsing History options

In "Browsing history", click on the Delete... button:

Internet Explorer Internet Options Delete Browsing History, highlighting Cookies

Click on Delete cookies...

Internet Explorer Delete Cookies confirmation

Click on Yes, and your cookies have been deleted.

Firefox

Click on the Tools menu, and then the Options menu item:

Firefox Options dialog, highlighting the Privacy tab

Click on the Privacy tab:

Firefox Options dialog Privacy tab, highlighting the clear recent history link

Click on clear your recent history:

Firefox's Clear Recent History dialog

In the "Time range to clear" drop-down, select the period for which you wish to clear cookies (choose "Everything" if you're not sure). Then in the details area uncheck everything except Cookies (though of course you can leave checked any additional items you also want to clear).

Click Clear Now and your cookies have been cleared.

Article C3941 - December 3, 2009

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Recent Comments
13 Comments

For people like myself who prefer the Opera browser - Click on Tools - Delete Private Data - click on "Detailed Options" and make sure "Delete all cookies" option is checked and then then just click on the "Delete" button towards the bottom.

And for those comments concerned with "flash cookies" and "index.dat" files CCleaner is recommended - http://www.ccleaner.com/

http://hitanykey.webs.com/

Posted by: Terry Hollett at December 9, 2009 4:36 AM

Just use CCleaner every night, as I do. All temp internet files, cookies, index dat, thumbnails, temporary files, etc, is wiped away with this method beyond recovery, if you set the program to erase using the Guttman method (35 sweeps). However, cookies are not completely erased by this method. What I'm saying is, they can be retreived by a program such as Recuva, from the same company as CCleaner. You can't fully get rid of cookies no matter how many times you try to erase them. You can delete them, but the only way to fully destroy them is with a reformat and reinstall of your OS. HP actually recommends that you do this once a year, anyway.

Posted by: Charles Tilley at December 27, 2009 7:28 PM

There are also third-party tools with integrated schedules that remove cookies, cache and also much more from the different browsers, like IE, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and let the browser work faster. E.g. History Killer Pro removes temp files, favicons, forms history, typed URLs, keyword search terms, thumbnails, etc.

Posted by: Artak at January 18, 2010 7:36 AM

In opera browser, there is also a option to choose which cookies to delete in tools>advanced>cookies. i also sets the option of asking me before accepting any cookies. i always only keep cookies of my frequent or joined sites and deletes the rest.

Posted by: veenav at February 28, 2010 5:32 PM

What about in Google Chrome? (And I don't want to delete all the cookies, just some, one in particular.)

Posted by: Dani at March 19, 2010 2:42 PM

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