
Updated · Feb 08, 2023
Updated · Feb 07, 2023
Has your phone been slowing down lately? Are you having trouble loading up some sites for no reason?
Or maybe you’d like to keep your browsing as private as possible?
Once you know how to clear cookies on your iPhone, you can cover all those bases in one simple step.
Before I show you how to erase the cookies on your iPhone, let’s get the basics out of the way.
What are cookies, and what are they doing on your device?
Obviously, there aren’t any baked goods in your gadget. “Cookies” are small data pieces that websites put on your phone/computer when you visit them. They use them to remember you (well, your device) and identify you the next time you come by.
There are two types of cookies: first-party and third-party.
First-party cookies are created by the website you’re on. They remember your login details and preferred settings (e.g., what language you have a website set to).
Third-party ones are generated by other sites that have content on the site you’re on. They’re mainly used by advertisers and marketers. These are known as “tracking cookies” and have no impact on your user experience on a given site.
In most cases, cookies are a good thing. Sites use them to keep you logged in and personalize your experience. For example, if you remove cookies from your iPad, you’ll be logged out from everywhere.
On the other hand, there are a couple of potential issues.
Firstly, cookies are essentially a digital trail, and not everyone wants to leave one of those. It’s possible that your online activity can be tracked through them.
And secondly, small as they are, cookies are data. If you never erase the cookies on your iPhone, they’ll add up over time and end up hindering your device’s performance.
You don’t want that, so let me tell you how to prevent it.
Do bear in mind that deleting cookies will sign you out of all websites. So make sure you remember your passwords before doing it.
Safari is still the preferred iPhone browser choice for over 50% of users.
If you’re one of them and you want to remove cookies from your iPhone, it’s simple. You just need to clear your website data, and that’ll get the job done.
There’s also a way to clear them while keeping your other data intact, but we’ll get to that in a bit.
To clear your Safari history and cookies, here’s what you need to do:
Now, you can also get rid of the cookies on your iPhone without having to delete Safari history. The process is slightly different:
Going through the process in the Chrome app is also quite simple.
Unlike Safari, you don’t need to go digging around in Settings. The Chrome app has everything you need. Just follow the instructions below:
If you’re a Firefox fan trying to remove cookies from your iPhone, you can do it in a few simple steps. Similar to Chrome, Firefox lets you handle everything in-app without going through the device Settings.
Anyway, here’s what you need to do:
Don’t feel like doing regular cookie cleans on your device?
You’re in luck. Safari and Firefox both let you toggle your cookies off and be done with it.
Let me show you how to disable cookies on your iPhone altogether.
Disabling cookies on Safari takes seconds. All you need to do is:
That’s it. Your Safari browser will no longer store cookies from the websites you visit.
If you’re on Mozilla Firefox, disabling cookies can only be done through the in-app settings. Here’s how:
Congratulations – your Firefox browsing is now cookie-free.
Knowing that you can disable the cookies on your iPhone doesn’t mean you should automatically do it.
It’s all a matter of priorities. Turning them off might give you enhanced browsing security – at the cost of a less personalized website experience.
If you ask me, I’d recommend keeping them enabled and regularly cleaning them instead. Now that you know how to erase cookies on an iPhone, it’ll only take you seconds. You can maintain device performance, keep your browsing private, and still let websites give you some personalized service.
You really should. Cookies are small pieces of data, and letting them accumulate can burden your device. Clearing them regularly also makes your online activity harder to track.
It essentially makes all websites forget you ever visited them. It removes stored data chunks from your phone, which boosts performance. It also might solve some website issues.
However, next time you load a site, you’ll need to log in again and set your preferences. And clearing the cache on your iPhone means your device would need to load all the website’s assets again.
That depends on what you’re after. If you’re sure a website is private and you’re not concerned with device performance, you can leave its cookies alone. Clearing cookies on your iPhone is all about boosting device speed and making websites forget you.
Once you know how to clear cookies on an iPhone, it takes seconds. So if you want your phone to perform at its best, you should consider doing it every now and then.
Dilyan Dimitrov
A reader who loves writing, a marketer who loves tech, a nerd who loves working out. Dilyan is FOMO personified. If he isn't reading or writing, he's probably either gaming, messing around with something on his PC, or off swimming/cycling somewhere. Oh, or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
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Updated · Feb 08, 2023
Updated · Feb 07, 2023
Updated · Feb 07, 2023
Updated · Feb 07, 2023