Clearing cookies on your Mac is an essential maintenance task to safeguard privacy and improve browsing performance. Cookies, while serving various purposes, can accumulate over time, impacting your device’s speed and security. In this guide, we’ll explore convenient methods to clear cookies on your Mac, ensuring a streamlined browsing experience and safeguarding your online privacy.
We have also provided possible ways to clear cookies on your Mac from all major web browsers like Safari, Chrome and Firefox.
Follow these steps to efficiently manage and maintain your browser’s cookie data, promoting a more secure and responsive online environment.
What Are Cookies on Mac ?
Cookies are browser created files which store data of your online usage and your website preferences. These cookies are utilised when you visit the website again and recognise your preferences to aid in better user experience.
For instance any e-commerce website would remember your login credentials and items in the cart after closing the website, then will display them both without logging again. So basically cookies are browser created files on your Mac storing information of your activities online.
Is It Okay to Delete Cookies?
It is completely safe to delete cookies from your Mac, it will not hamper any system performance and instead will help you regain precious disk space which otherwise will be wasted on unwanted cookies. The only difference you would find after deleting cookies is your browsing history and website preferences will be lost, that’s why you would need to log in again and set your preferences accordingly.
Cookies also tend to store your personal information and might risk your privacy concerns under any online attacks. Unless you tend to visit limited secure websites it is a good idea to regularly delete cookies from your Mac.
How to Clear Cookies in Safari on Mac?
Safari only offers the option to clear web history along with cookies, you can’t clear cookies without clearing web history. You can perform this action in two ways :
1. Using Clear History menu –
1. Launch Safari web browser on your Mac, Select Safari on the top menu bar. Click on the ‘Clear History’ option from the dropdown menu options.
2. Select the duration of time you want to clear the history and cookies from the drop-down menu, then Click on ‘Clear History’ to clear cookies.
2. Using Preference menu –
1. Launch Safari browser on your Mac, Select Safari on top menu bar. Click on the ‘Preferences’ option from the dropdown menu.
2. Under the Preferences section, Select ‘Privacy’ tab from top and Click on ‘Manage Website Data’ button.
3. Then Click on the ‘Remove All’ option to clear all your web history and cookies from Safari.
4. When prompted to confirm, Click on the ‘Remove Now’ option.
You can also remove all the cache and other files from Safari by going to this location : ‘~/Library/Safari/Databases’ and deleting all the files in the folder. T
his will remove all the associated files of Safari and your browser will start as fresh.
How to Clear Cookies in Chrome on Mac
You can clear cookies in Chrome on your Mac by following these steps :
1. Launch Chrome web browser on your Mac, Click on three horizontal dots icon button on the top right corner to open menu options.
2. Click on ‘Settings’ option from the dropdown list.
3. Under ‘Settings’ windows, Select ‘Privacy and security’ from the left sidebar menu. From the options Click on ‘Cookies and other site data’.
4. Then Scroll down and Select ‘See all cookies and site data’ option from the list on the Cookies and other site data window.
5. You can view all websites’ cookie data in the list, you can either individually select the website and delete the cookies or you can Click on the ‘Remove all’ button to clear all cookies in Chrome.
You can also set Chrome to clear cookies after closing the browser, Go back to ‘Cookies and other Site Data’ section and Enable the ‘Clear cookies and site data when you close all windows’ option.
How to Clear Cookies in Firefox on Mac
To delete cookies in Firefox browser on your Mac follow the below steps :
1. Launch Firefox browser on your Mac, Click on three horizontal lines icon button on the top right corner to open the menu. Then Select the ‘Settings’ option from the drop-down menu.
2. Later in the Settings menu, Click on the ‘Privacy & Security’ option from the list.
3. Then under the ‘Cookies and Site Data’ section, Click on the ‘Manage Data’ option to select and delete cookies of individual websites.
3. Under ‘Manage Cookies and Site Data’ you can either select individual websites to remove cookies or you can simply Click on ‘Remove All’ to clear cookies from all the websites.
You can also set Firefox to clear cookies after closing the browser, Go back to ‘Cookies and Site Data’ section and Enable the checkbox next to ‘Delete cookies and site data when Firefox is closed’ option.
Remove All Cookies on Mac Using CleanMyMac
Yes you can manually clear cookies from Safari, Chrome & Firefox on your Mac, but it takes a lot of effort and time to individually open each browser and clear cookies on them.
It gets a lot easier and faster to clear cookies from all browsers on your Mac using third-party applications like CleanMyMac X at a time. CleanMyMac X also helps clear other browser junk such as caches, histories, etc and aid in significant disk space recovery.
1. Download and Install CleanMyMac X on your Mac from it’s official website here.
2. Select ‘Privacy’ module from left sidebar menus and Select which browser you want to clear cookies from the list.
3. Check the cookies icon from the list of items and Click on the ‘Remove’ button at the bottom to proceed.
You can remove all junk from the multiple browsers on your Mac at time from the Privacy module of CleanMyMac X. It also lets you manage Application Permissions for various components of your Mac.
Frequently Asked Questions –
Q1. Is it good to clear cookies on a Mac?
Yes, it is considered a good idea to regularly clear cookies on your Mac. It not only helps you regain precious disk space but also protects your privacy concerns.
Q2. Where do you find cookies on a Mac?
Cookies are stored in the browsers folder on your Mac, you can find them through the browser settings and then under the privacy & site data section.
Q3. Does deleting Safari history delete cookies?
No, you need to specifically delete cookies to clear them from Safari. You can either delete both history and cookies together or individually.
Q4. Is clearing history the same as clearing cache?
Unfortunately no, Clearing history will not clear cache. Both are different files and you need to clear them both together or individually from your web browsers.
Conclusion On How To Clear Cookies On Mac
Cookies created by websites on your Mac are mostly useful for better user experience, but for most part they tend to occupy significant space on your Mac disk space. If you visit a limited number of websites and usually don’t stay online more often, then cookies on Mac are comparatively less and you don’t need to clear them regularly.
But if you visit many websites and do a lot more online activities then cookie size would be drastically large and we recommend clearing them regularly. You would regain precious disk space which is a very good option then also would protect your privacy from letting websites accessing your private information.
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