How do we delete Safari history, cookies and cache (Safari Privacy)

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When we access a web page, on our computer, in the internet browser, several data are saved for a period of time. Cookies files, cache files and web browsing history. Before we see how we delete these files that belong to Safari Privacy, let's briefly see what these files mean and what their role is.

What are cookies

Cookies help host web pages that you access to identify your online preferences and sometimes even your identity. Without cookies, you will not be able to stay logged in to a website after you close your browser, you will not be able to set certain preferences on a portal or you will not keep products in the shopping cart on an online store.
Cookies are also used for marketing. Online advertising trackers use cookies to find out as much information as possible about you. What websites you visit, how much time you spend on a site, what type of content you are most interested in, plus many other data. That is why when you access a web page, the European Union has imposed the mandatory consent that a website administrator must receive from each user.

The cookies are very small and will not take up storage space. A file is around 2K-4K.

After deleting cookies, you will notice that you will need to re-authenticate on online sites and applications. Even if the passwords are saved in the browser, the authenticated sessions have been closed with the deletion of cookies.

What are web cache files

By all accounts, web cached files are what make up the web page accessed. Most of the files, including: images, CSS code, HTML code, and Java code, are stored for a limited or longer period of time.

For website administrators, managing cached files is very important. An effective caching policy will greatly increase the loading speed of web pages when they are accessed by visitors and will put a smaller load on the server.

In a simple scenario, the images that make up a web page and that are not updated frequently, after the first access they will be stored in the cache of the browser. Astffel, when you re-access the web page after a while, the images will be served from the cache, instead of being downloaded again from the Internet from the host server.
For the user it means a higher loading speed of the web page and less internet traffic, and for the host server it means less traffic and less execution processes.

The same goes for the scripts that make up certain elements of the website and the style files.

If the disk space on the disk is tiny, we can't say the same about the cache files. Because these can include media files, the cache space can range from a few hundred MB to a few GB.

Internet browser history

When we access a web page, it is saved in the internet browser's browsing history. The purpose is primarily to remind you which pages you have visited in case you want to re-access it in search of information.

History also helps to fill in the address bar automatically when you type the first characters of a web page. Autocomplete in address bar.

How do we delete Safari history (browsing history), cookies and web cache (Safari Privacy)

History, cookies and caches are elements that we find on all web browsers. Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Microsoft Edge. However, the methods of managing this data differ from browser to browser.

For users Safari, deleting the entire web browsing history automatically means deleting all data from web pages in the history. Cookies and web data (cache).

1. go to Safari to the menu bar and open "History"Then we have the last option"Clear History"

Clear History in Safari
Clear History in Safari

2. As I said above, deleting the browsing history in Safari, will automatically delete cookies and web data. In addition, these files and the history will be deleted from all the devices you have Safari synchronized in iCloud. For example, if you have a MacBook, a iMac and an iPad, if you perform this operation from the MacBook, history, cookies and web data will be automatically deleted from all three devices.

Clearing history will remove related cookies and other website data.
History will also be removed on other devices signed into yours iCloud account
.

Clearing history, cookies, web data
Clearing history, cookies, web data

We can choose to delete Safari history (browsing history) from the last hour, from the current day, the current day and the previous day, or the entire browsing history. All history.

Clear all history
Clear all history

3. We confirm the data deletion. "Remove Now", again Safari history will disappear from the device.

Remove Now
Remove Now

How can we delete selectively Safari history?

If we want to delete only certain web addresses from the browsing history, go to Safari on the menu bar, History, then access "Show All History".

Show All History in Safari
Show All History in Safari

From the list of accessed web addresses, select the web address that we want to delete from the history, right click and click "Delete".

Delete web page from Safari history
Delete web page from history

In this way we will delete only one page and Safari history.

How to delete sensitive data (cookies) without deleting your browsing history

If we want to delete only the cookie files, without affecting them Safari history, then the simplest is to access the "Privacy" settings. Safari Privacy.

We go to the menu "Preferences"The Safari, then under "Privacy" we click on "Manage Website Data".

Manage Website Data Privacy
Manage Website Data Privacy

Here we can also observe what was stored in Safari when accessing a web page. If only cookies or cache files were stored.

website Data

We note that for some websites only cookies were stored, while for others cache files, cookies, Local were stored. Storage and HSTS Policy.

We can choose to delete this data individually or all at once. Remove All.

I am happy to share my experiences in the field of computers, mobile phones and operating systems, to develop web projects and to bring the most useful tutorials and advice. I like to "play" on the iPhone, MacBook Pro, iPad, AirPort Extreme and on operating systems macOS, iOS, Android and Windows.

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