How to delete cookies, clear your cache, and wipe your history in Internet Explorer

Help protect your privacy with these simple tips!

David bisson
David Bisson
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How to delete cookies, clear your cache, and wipe your history in Internet Explorer

By now, regular readers are familiar with the many benefits of clearing their web browsing history and cookies. They also know how to delete their site preferences and other data stored by Mozilla Firefox, and Google Chrome. We hope these guides give users peace of mind and help them optimize their web browsing experiences.

But our work is never done. Acknowledging that reality, we now turn to another web browser from which users might want to safeguard their information. Here are some steps on how you can clear your browser history, cookies, and cache in Internet Explorer.

Clearing Your Cache and Cookies

  1. Open a new window in Internet Explorer. Near the top-right corner of the display window, you will see an icon shaped like a gear. This is the Tools icon. Click it.
  2. A drop-down menu will appear from the Tools icon. Hover over Safety and select Delete browser history… in the secondary menu that displays.
Delete browsing history
Source: University of Wisconsin-Madison KnowledgeBase
  1. Uncheck Preserve Favorites website data, check Temporary Internet Files and Cookies, and click Delete. This will clear both your cache and your cookies.

Sometimes the steps provided above don’t clear all your cookies and other cached information. You can remove these persistent files in Internet Explorer 10 and lower (But we’ve all upgraded, right?) by clicking the Tools icon, selecting F12 developer tools, and clicking Clear browser cache…. Don’t forget to click “Yes” to confirm!

Clear cache
Source: University of Wisconsin-Madison KnowledgeBase

You can also choose to block cookies on Internet Explorer by navigating from the Tools icon to Internet options, selecting the Privacy tab, choosing Advanced under Settings, and specify you want to block first- and third-party cookies.

View and Delete Your Browser History

  1. Open a new window in Internet Explorer. Near the top-right corner of the display window next to the Tools icon, you will see an icon shaped like a star. This is the Favorites icon. Click it.
  2. Select History and choose how much of your browsing history you’d like to clear before hitting Delete.
Aid956218 v4 728px delete browsing history in internet explorer step 23
Source: wikiHow

Alternatively, you can navigate to Tools > Safety > Delete browsing history… > and select History and Download History before hitting Delete.

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Stay tuned for a guide on how to protect your privacy in yet another web browser!


David Bisson is an infosec news junkie and security journalist. He works as Contributing Editor for Graham Cluley Security News and Associate Editor for Tripwire's "The State of Security" blog.

5 comments on “How to delete cookies, clear your cache, and wipe your history in Internet Explorer”

  1. Simon

    For sensitive sites, I just open In-Private browsing (Incognito mode in Chrome/Chromium) – no need to worry about cache or cookies.

    1. Esther · in reply to Simon

      "Sensitive sites?"

      1. Esther · in reply to Esther

        Pardon. Question mark after quotation mark.

  2. RawLu

    I now use Edge & I suggested in the W10 Feedback they add the ability to for Edge to automatically delete all your browsing history etc. when it was closed? and they did! :-)

    I use to have to manually delete it with IE & I did it often, especially after online banking, shopping etc. ;-)

  3. Andrew Jackman

    I think using the incognito mode is the better option. No need to worry about clearing cookies and is also safe to use https://techieans.com/fix-err_cache_miss-error

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