What are browser cookies? Should I clear cookies on Mac? And how to clear cookies on Mac? If you have these questions, don't hesitate to scroll down and check the answers.
Clearing cookies on your Mac regularly is a good habit. It can help fix some browser problems and protect your privacy. Also, if the personal info automatically completed on websites isn't correct, deleting cookies can also help. Wondering how to delete cookies on Mac? You are in the right place. This post will tell you how to clear cookies in Safari, Chrome, and Firefox on Mac. Besides, you can get the solutions on clearing browser cache on Mac and deleting stubborn cookies from Mac.
Part 1. What Are Cookies on Mac?
Browser cookies, or web cookies, are small text files on your computer, which contain data about you and your preferences from websites you visit. It's generated by the visited website and stored on your browser. When you visit a site again, your browser (Safari, Chrome, Firefox, etc.) sends the cookie to the website so that the site recognizes you and what you did on the last visit. Do you remember that sometimes when you return to a website, the site shows you the items you checked out last time or it keeps your username? That's because of the cookies. In short, cookies are files on your Mac to keep the information of what you've done on a website.
There are 2 main types of cookies which are session cookies and persistent cookies. Session cookies are temporary and are deleted when you close your browser. These cookies work on keeping you logged in to your account while accessing a site, etc. Persistent cookies store your browsing perferences and settings like language and remain until they expire or you delete them.
Part 2. Is It Okay to Clear Cookies on Mac?
It is totally okay to remove cookies from your Mac. But you should know that once cookies are deleted, your browsing history on the specific websites will be deleted so you have to log in to the websites again and reset your preferences.
For example, if you clear the cookie of a shopping website, your username won't show and the items in your shopping carts will be cleaned. But if you log in to the website again or add new items, new cookies will be generated.
If you visit a lot of websites every day and some of them you will not revisit them again, it makes sense that you delete cookies from your browser, because it will be helpful to save up your storage and protect your private information.
Part 3. Quick Way to Delete All Cookies on Mac (Recommended)
If you are using multiple browsers on your Mac, there is a quick way to clear cookies from multiple browsers at once: Macube Cleaner. This is an all-in-one cleaner for Mac systems and its Privacy feature can help you remove browser data, including cookies, caches, browsing history, etc.
Besides clearing cookies, this cleanup utility also provides powerful features such as Smart Scan, Uninstaller, Large & Old Files Finder, Duplicate Finder, Shredder, etc. for you to easily locate and clean up the necessary files and speed up your Mac.
Now let’s see how to use this tool to remove cookies:
Step 1: Download and install Macube Cleaner on Mac.
Step 2: Open the cleaner and select Privacy option.
Step 3: Click Scan and after scanning, choose a browser, for example, Google Chrome. Tick Cookies and click Clean button to clear Chrome cookies.
Step 4: To clear cookies on Safari, Firefox or others, choose the specific browser and repeat the above step.
If you need to further clean junk on Mac, use Macube Cleaner to clear browser caches, system caches, duplicated files, and more.
Part 4. How to Manually Clear Cookies on Mac
1. How to Clear Cookies in Safari on Mac
You can follow the steps below to clear Safari's cookies on Mac:
Step 1: Open Safari on Mac and click Safari > Settings.
Step 2: In the shown window, choose Privacy and click Manage Website Data.
Step 3: Select Remove All to delete all cookies in the pop-out. To delete cookies from individual sites, just make the site chosen and then click Remove.
2. How to Remove Cookies in Google Chrome on Mac
Now, let's see the way to clear cookies on Mac from Chrome page manually:
Step 1: Launch Google Chrome browser.
Step 2: On the top left corner, click Chrome > Clear Browsing Data.
Step 3: Check Cookies and other site data and set the time range.
Step 4: Click Clear data to clear cookies in Chrome on Mac.
3. How to Delete Cookies in Firefox on Mac
To fix how to clear cookies on Mac from Firefox webpage without the cleaner app, you can refer to the below steps:
Step 1: Open Firefox. Choose History > Clear Recent History.
Step 2: Choose the time range to clear.
Step 3: Check Cookies and click Ok.
Part 5. Cannot Delete Cookies? Here's What to Do
You may find that some cookies can't be deleted. So you have removed all the data from Privacy on Safari, but some cookies just come back after several seconds. So how to get rid of these cookies? Here are some thoughts.
Close Safari and click Finder > Go > Go to Folder.
Copy and paste ~/Library/Safari/Databases and go to this folder.
Delete files in the folder.
Note:
- Do not delete the folder itself.
Now you can check if the cookies are cleared. If not, open this folder: ~/Library/Safari/Local Storage. And delete contents in the folder.
Note:
- If you cannot delete cookies with the built-in feature on Safari, Chrome or Firefox, you can delete the cookies with Macube Cleaner.
Part 6. How to Clear Browser Cache on Mac
Cache helps your Mac quickly retrieve data and in turn speed up the processes. This way, the Mac performance boosts and your user experience is improved. Accumulated cache can occupy a certain amount of the storage space of your Mac, though cache is beneficial at most of the time. You can try to delete browser cache on your Mac and here we will show you how to do it in Safari, Chrome and Firefox.
How to Remove Safari Cache on Mac
Step 1: Run Safari. Click Safari in the upper pane and select Preferences from the drop-down menu.
Step 2: Switch to Advanced tab and check Show Develop menu in the menu bar.
Step 3: Choose Develop in the upper menu and select Empty Caches.
How to Clear Cache in Chrome on Mac
Step 1: Click the three-dot button in the top-right corner of your Chrome browser. Then select Settings from the shown menu.
Step 2: Select Privacy and security > Clear browsing data.
Step 3: Set the time range and check Cached images and files. At last, hit Clear data to get rid of all cache from Chrome.
How to Delete Cache from Firefox on Mac
Step 1: Click the 3-stripe option in the top-right corner of the Firefox browser and choose Preferences.
Step 2: Select Privacy & Security from the left bar. Then locate Cookies and Site Data section and click Clear Data.
Step 3: Check Cached Web Content and hit OK.
Tips:- You can try Macube to clear cache in Safari, Chrome and Firefox in one place and with one click.
Conclusion
Above is the full guide to clear cookies and cache on Mac. In a word, you can separately delete cookies and cache in Safari, Chrome and Firefox with their inbuilt functions or use Macube Cleaner to remove browser cache and cookies with one click.
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