How to Set Chrome to Clear Cookies on Exit

Cookies are delicious – except when they are sitting on your computer. Websites use cookies to store tiny pieces of information on your system, whether it is login info, various page settings or a session ID. Most of these are harmless and actually save you time so that you do not have to log in to each website every time you visit it.

However, many people prefer not to have these stored on their machines. Sure, you can get rid of them a couple of different ways manually, such as deleting only specific cookies from select websites or clearing your browser history, cache and cookies in your Settings menu.

Why should we have to do this, though? If we do not want Chrome to save these tidbits of info, then it should be a simple matter to tell it a big fat NO. For quite a while, Chrome was the only browser that did not allow you to set it up so that all cookies would clear when you closed the browser completely. Thankfully, there is now a way to make Google Chrome clear cookies on exit.

Open up Chrome and type the following into the address bar (and then hit the ”Enter” button) to open up the proper window within your Settings:

chrome://settings/content/cookies

The first option is to ”Allow Sites to Save and Read Cookie Data.” You can turn this off. However, many sites will not then allow you to log in and many will not render properly. I recommend leaving it toggled on.

The next option is the money shot. Next to ”Keep Local Data Only Until You Quit Your Browser,” flip the slide to the right to turn it on.

Turning this on has now ensured that all cookies collected while browsing through Chrome will be removed once you completely close the browser. Remember… you will have to log in to any and all websites you visit regularly every time you start Chrome in the future with this settings turned on.

The fourth option down on this same page allows you to view all cookies currently on your computer via Chrome. Click there and go through the list. You can click one of them and receive much more information, including what – exactly – it is doing there, when it was placed there and more. There is also a little trash can next to each one which allows you to delete them manually if you choose.

Under this option, you will see a section titled ”Block.” This lets you add any websites of your choosing to a block list, which will no longer allow any cookies to ever be stored on your machine from that particular website.

The next option is called ”Clear on Exit.” This differs a bit from our money shot earlier in this article. It will not clear every cookie from Chrome on exit. However, you can add sites to this section that will then cause Chrome to clear only the cookies from those exact sites.

Last, we have the ”Allow” section. If you chose earlier in the game to block all cookies (even though not recommended,) you can add sites here as exceptions. This could include your bank, your school or even work.

Happy browsing!