How to clear your web browsing Cache, Cookies, History

Before you begin

Clearing your web browser's cache, cookies, and history may remove data such as the following:

• Saved passwords
• Address bar predictions
• Shopping cart contents, etc.

While you should clear your web browser's cache, cookies, and history periodically in order to prevent or resolve performance problems, you may wish to record some of your saved information first.

PC Browsers

Google Chrome

Go to the three-dot menu () at the upper-right of Chrome to select Settings > Advanced > Privacy and security > Clear browsing data or History > History > Clear browsing data or More tools > Clear browsing data. Or type "chrome://settings/clearBrowserData" in the omnibar without the quotation marks.

Any of these options takes you to the dialog box to delete not only the history of your browsing, but also your download history (it won't delete the actual downloaded files), all your cookies, cached images and files (which help load pages faster when you revisit), saved passwords and more.

Better yet, you can delete only the info from the last hour, day, week, month, or all of it to "the beginning of time."

Chrome doesn't give you the option to not collect your browser history, but earlier this summer, Google announced it would let people request that Google delete Location History and Web & App Activity every three months or every 18 months.

To do that, navigate to myactivity.google.com, and click "Go to your Web & App Activity." By default, Google will keep activity data until you manually delete it; click "Choose to Delete automatically" to get rid of it every 18 months or three months.

Opera

Under the main menu in Opera, in the navigation bar on the left, click the clock icon to enter History. You'll see a Clear browsing data button that offers almost identical settings as Chrome, right down to the "beginning of time" option. (You can also type "opera://settings/clearBrowserData" into the address bar.) It's similar because Opera is built with the engine from the Chromium Project, which also underlies Chrome. Opera offers a little extra to those who want to go around the web safely however—a built-in VPN option courtesy of SurfEasy, also found in the Privacy & Security settings.

Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer

Go to the three-dot menu () in Microsoft Edge and select Settings > Privacy & security; in the fly-out menu, click the button under Clear browsing data that reads "Choose what to clear."

Here you can get rid of browsing history, cookies, cached data, stored form data, saved tabs, media licenses, website permissions, and stored passwords; click Manage Permissions and you can delete things like sites you've given permission to show pop-ups.

You can't delete just one chunk of data from a time period like a day or week, but there is the option to "Always clear this [data] when I close the browser." That ensures you have no browser history stored, as long as you close the browser regularly. Pick more data types and you'll have next to nothing stored—which is fine until you're entering the same passwords and 2FA logins over and over (the price of freedom, people).

Like Google, Microsoft is keeping some of your history online. Click Change what Microsoft Edge knows about me in the cloud to visit a page for your Microsoft account where you can delete that synced browsing history. You can also delete search history at Bing.com, stored location data showing where you've logged in, and stuff you've stored in Cortana's notebook.

Still using Internet Explorer (IE)? You're not alone. To wipe the history in IE11 and 10, go to the Gear icon () at upper left and select Internet Options. On the General tab, you can check a box next to Delete browsing history on exit, or click the Delete button to instantly get rid of history, passwords, cookies, cached data (called Temporary Internet files and website files), and more. If you instead click Settings, you go to a History tab and ensure your history is only collected for a specific number of days, automatically deleting anything older.

You have the option to get rid of your browsing history using the Favorites Menu. Click the star on the top-right > History tab. There, you can see websites you visited on specific dates (Today, Last Week, 3 Weeks Ago, etc.) Right-click to delete everything from a specific time period, or click to view and delete specific websites. If you're using an older version of IE, there are instructions online for deleting the history.

Safari

On macOS, Safari rules. Clearing your website visit history is simple: click Clear History in the History menu. Then in the pop-up, pick a time frame for how far back you want to erase. This is doing a lot more than deleting the browser history, however—it also takes out your cookies and data cache.

You can instead click History > Show History to get a pop-up displaying every site you've visited, then take out sites individually, without losing the cookies and cache. Zap cookies by going into Preferences > Privacy; delete your cache by going to the Develop menu and picking Empty Caches. If you don't have a Develop menu in Safari, go to Preferences > Advanced and check Show Develop Menu in Menu Bar at bottom.

You can instead click History > Show History to get a pop-up displaying every site you've visited, then take out sites individually, without losing the cookies and cache. Zap cookies by going into Preferences > Privacy; delete your cache by going to the Develop menu and picking Empty Caches. If you don't have a Develop menu in Safari, go to Preferences > Advanced and check Show Develop Menu in Menu Bar at bottom.

Mozilla Firefox

In the latest version of Firefox go to the hamburger menu () and section Options > Privacy & Security. You're instantly in the Content Blocking section; scroll down to get to History. Set Firefox to remember, to never remember, or get some custom settings like remember history, but not cookies, or whatever.

This section also has a Clear History button. Click it to pick a time range to clear (1, 2, 4, or 24 hours—or everything), and what data to dump (history, logins, forms/search, cookies, and cache).


heck the Firefox Account section while you're in here—if you've signed on with a Mozilla Firefox account, your history (plus bookmarks, tabs, passwords, and preferences) may be synced with your other PCs and devices using Firefox, even on smartphones.

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Mobile Browsers

Safari

On the iPhone and iPad, Safari is the standard browser. To not record a browser history, you can just stay in Private mode while surfing. When you do have a history to delete, go to Settings > Safari > Clear History & Website Data. Doing this not only takes out the history, but also cookies and other stuff. Plus, if the phone is signed into iCloud, it clears the history on iCloud as well as on other devices hooked into that iCloud account.

If you want to only delete data for select sites, go back to Settings > Safari and scroll down to Advanced > Website Data. After it loads (it can take a while) you'll see a listing of every website you've visited—and probably a lot you didn't, because it also records the sites serving third-party cookies. Tap Edit > (minus symbol) next to each to delete, or just swipe left for the same function.

Chrome

Google's Chrome browser is the standard with all Android phones, and is downloadable on iOS. In either, go to the three-dot () menu, select History, and you're looking at the list of all sites you've visited while cognito (as opposed to Incognito)—and that includes history across all Chrome browsers signed into the same Google account.

With iOS, you have the option to either click Edit or Clear Browsing Data at the bottom. If you click the latter (which is the only option on Android phones and tablets), you're sent to a dialog box (pictured) that allows the eradication of all browsing history, cookies, cached data, saved passwords, and autofill data—you pick which you want to delete. Android users get the added ability to limit deletion to an hour, a day, a week, a month, or the legendary "beginning of time."

Again, check My Activity later to see what may be stored online.

What's more, on iOS, there is a completely separate Google app for searching (iOS, Android), with its own integrated browser. You can't delete the history of surfing within that Google app, though you can close all the tabs by clicking the Tabs icon at upper right, swiping one floating window right to delete, then clicking CLEAR ALL. That app's search history is stored at My Activity, of course.