I know I can "Reset Safari". I know I can go to Cookies from Preferences and search for a site's cookies and delete those. But is there a faster/easier way to just clear cookies for one site (preferably one that I'm already navigated to)?
How to quickly clear cookies for a specific site using Safari for Mac
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In recent versions of Safari (I am on 5.1 now), local storage can be cleared with Safari » Reset Safari » Remove all website data. Or by using Safari » Preferences » tabsheet Privacy » Cookies and other website data » Remove All Website Data. And even by using Remove All when viewing the details on that very same Privacy tabsheet. The Security tabsheet no longer shows any button to view the databases.
Some more details, also for older versions:
On my Mac, I found the folder ~/Library/Safari/LocalStorage
, which has a file for each site that uses local storage†, with its creation date set to my very first visit to each site. On Windows, this might be in a folder like %APPDATA%\Apple\Safari
or %APPDATA%\Apple Computer\Safari
.
Deleting all those files, and restarting Safari, obviously cleared the data for StackAuth too.
However, logging in to a random Stack Exchange site gets me the StackAuth data again, and a file in the above folder, without ever being prompted to allow that (my Safari preferences show "Database storage: none allowed before asking"), and without the domain being shown in the "Show databases" list. This also happens in private browsing modes.
This seems to be caused by the difference between HTML5 Web Databases, and HTML5 Web Storage (the latter including local storage). Chrome shows both for Twitter:
Apparently Safari only warns for databases, not for local storage? Maybe blocking local storage is going to be as hard as stopping Adobe Flash from leaving its privacy trail. The specifications state:
User agents should expire data from the local storage areas only for security reasons or when requested to do so by the user.
Let's hope someone knows of an easier way, or that we get some more control in future releases. (I filed a feature request at Apple for that.)
† In my case, I found as many as 5,904 items dating back to March 2009. And even my own domains, for which I'm sure no local storage is used, were listed with 8kb files each. Investigation shows that Alexey Ruzanov's FlashBlock user script uses local storage too, and hence causes a file for each site one visits, regardless whether it uses local storage, and regardless whether it uses Flash.
Use the following AppleScript code and save it e.g. as an application in AppleScript Editor, or as a Service consisting of a single Run AppleScript action in Automator.
tell application "Safari" to activate
tell application "System Events"
tell application process "Safari"
tell menu bar 1 to tell menu bar item "Safari" to tell menu 1 to tell menu item "Reset Safari…" to click
tell window "Reset Safari" to tell button "Reset" to click
end tell
end tell
This will activate Safari, launching it if it's not running, and then open and submit the "Reset Safari…" menu item.
Best Answer
There you go!
Clearing a Specific Cookie on Safari: Safari makes you do a little more mousework to get to the listing of cookies in the system, and you have to specify which you want to remove. To get started, go to the preferences menu, and open the “Security” Options. Partway down the page is a button labeled “Show Cookies.” Click this.
Once you have clicked the “Show Cookies” button, you will be shown a listing of all of the cookies your browser has stored, along with a handy search box. Type the current domain name into this search to see a listing of cookies set by the current site. From here, you can select and delete the cookies.