How to Clear Cookies, Cache, and History from Web Browsers

Description

Whenever you visit a website, your web browser automatically keeps a temporary copy of all the files it used to display each website.

If you are having problems with a website, clearing your cache is a good way to "start again with a clean slate" and get a completely fresh copy of the websites you visit.

IMPORTANT: Be sure and close/quit the browser and reopen it after clearing the cache and cookies. 

What are cookies, cache and history?

  • Cookies - small files sent to your browser from sites you visit. When you visit the site again in the future, your browser will send a cookie back to the site so that you can be served a more personalized experience.
  • Cache - a system for storing web data to quickly serve it again in the future. The process of saving this data is referred to as โ€œcaching.โ€
  • History - browser history is a record of the sites youโ€™ve visited in the past. The record stores the names of the sites and when you visited them.

Instructions

๐Ÿ“˜ Google Chrome
  1. Click the Tools menu (three dotted lines in the upper-right corner).

  1. Click Settings.

  1. Click Privacy and security from the left pane. 

  1. Click Delete browsing data.

  1. Click the More drop-down, select All time. Click the check boxes next to Browsing history, Cookies and other site data, Cached images and files, and Download history. Click the Delete data button. 

๐Ÿ“˜ Microsoft Edge
  1. Click the Tools menu (three dotted lines in the upper-right corner), and open the Settings menu.

  1. Click Settings. 

  1. Click Privacy, search, and services in the left pane. 

  1. Click Clear browsing data. 

  1. Click Choose what to clear.

  1.  Set Time range to All time. Check the boxes next to Browsing history, Download history, Cookies and other site data, and Cached images and files. Click the Clear now button. 
๐Ÿ“˜ Mozilla Firefox
  1. Click on the Tools bar (three bars in the top-right corner).

  1. Click Settings. 

  1. Click Privacy and security. 

  1. Scroll down to the Browsing data section. Click Clear browsing data. 

  1. Set When to Everything. Click the check boxes next to Browsing & download history, Cookies and site data, Temporary cached files and pages. Click the Clear button.

๐Ÿ“˜ Safari for macOS
  1. Open Safari on your Mac. 

 

  1. Click History on the top menu bar, then click Clear History...

 

  1. Select All History from the Clear drop-down box. Click Clear History. 

Additional Information

For additional assistance, please contact IT Support Services at 531-622-2900 or ITSupportServices@mccneb.edu.

Print Article