Clear your Safari cache and cookies in Settings on iPhone and iPad, or in the Safari menu on Mac
Safari stores two kinds of data about your browsing: cache (images, scripts, and files from websites you visit, saved to load pages faster) and cookies (small files that websites use to remember you, track your activity, or store login information). Clearing both removes traces of where you've been and stops many tracking tools from following you across sites.
On iPhone and iPad, you clear cache and cookies through Settings. On Mac, you use the Safari menu. Both take less than a minute. You can clear everything at once or choose a specific time range — last hour, last day, last week, or all history.
Key Takeaways
- On iPhone and iPad, go to Settings > Safari > Clear History and Website Data and choose your time range.
- On Mac, open Safari, click Safari in the menu bar, select Clear History, and choose how far back to clear.
- Clearing cache and cookies removes stored login information, so you may need to sign back into websites afterward.
- Cookies are the main tool data brokers and advertisers use to track you across websites, so clearing them regularly reduces what gets collected about your behavior.
How to clear cache and cookies on iPhone and iPad
Open the Settings app on your home screen. Scroll down and tap Safari (not the Safari app itself — the Safari settings within Settings). Tap Clear History and Website Data.
A menu appears with three options for how far back to clear: the last hour, the last day, the last week, or all time. Choose the range you want. Tap Clear History and Website Data again to confirm. Safari will remove all cache and cookies from that time period.
If you want to clear data only from specific websites, you cannot do that through Settings on iPhone or iPad. You would need to use a Mac or clear everything.
How to clear cache and cookies on Mac
Open Safari. Click Safari in the menu bar at the top of the screen (not the Safari icon in your dock). A dropdown menu appears. Click Clear History.
A dialog box opens asking "Clear history from:" with a dropdown menu. Your options are the last hour, the last day, the last week, or all history. Choose your time range and click Clear History. Safari removes all cache and cookies from that period when ready.
On Mac, you can also go to Safari > Preferences > Privacy to see which websites have stored cookies on your device. Click Manage Website Data to see a list, select any site, and click Remove to delete only that site's data without clearing everything.
What happens when you clear cache and cookies
Websites load slightly slower the first time you visit them after clearing cache, because Safari no longer has the images and files stored locally. This slowdown is usually unnoticeable — a fraction of a second.
You will be logged out of most websites. The next time you visit a site where you have an account, you will need to sign in again. This is because cookies store your login session. If you use iCloud Keychain or another password manager, signing back in takes a few seconds.
Advertisers and data brokers lose the ability to track you across websites using cookies. This is the main reason to clear them regularly. Cookies are how third-party trackers follow you from one site to another and build a profile of your interests and behavior. Clearing them breaks that chain.
How often to clear cache and cookies
There is no single right answer — it depends on your comfort level and how much you browse. Some people clear everything weekly. Others clear only cookies and leave cache alone. Some clear only when they notice their device running slowly.
If you are concerned about tracking or you visit many unfamiliar websites, clearing weekly or after each browsing session reduces the data collected about you. If you mostly visit the same few sites and do not mind signing back in occasionally, clearing monthly is sufficient.
You can also set Safari to clear cache and cookies automatically when you close the app. On iPhone and iPad, go to Settings > Safari and toggle on Close Tabs and Clear History. On Mac, go to Safari > Preferences > General and check the box for "Remove history items" and choose your time range from the dropdown.
The difference between clearing cache and clearing cookies
Cache is a copy of website files — images, stylesheets, JavaScript code — that Safari stores on your device. Websites ask your browser to cache these files so the next time you visit, the page loads from your device instead of downloading everything again. Cache makes browsing faster but takes up storage space. Clearing cache frees up space and forces Safari to read fresh copies of files, which can reveal if a website has changed since your last visit.
Cookies are small text files that websites write to your device. They store information like your login session, your shopping cart contents, your language preference, or your browsing history on that site. Third-party cookies (placed by advertisers or analytics companies, not the website you are visiting) are how trackers follow you across the internet. Clearing cookies removes all this stored information and breaks tracking chains.
When you clear history in Safari, you clear both cache and cookies at the same time. You cannot clear one without the other through the standard Safari settings.
Why this matters for your privacy
Cookies are the primary tool that data brokers, advertisers, and analytics companies use to track your behavior online. A single cookie from an ad network can follow you across hundreds of websites, recording what you search for, what you buy, what you read, and what you click on. Over time, this data builds a detailed profile of your interests, habits, and vulnerabilities.
Clearing cookies regularly breaks these tracking chains. It does not stop tracking entirely — websites can still see what you do while you are on their site, and your internet service provider can still see which sites you visit — but it prevents the cross-site tracking that creates the most detailed profiles.
If you are working to remove your information from data broker websites (the reason you likely arrived at this article), clearing cache and cookies is a complementary step. It stops new data from being collected and stored while you work on removing what is already out there.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will clearing cookies log me out of everything?
Yes. Cookies store your login sessions, so clearing them signs you out of most websites. You will need to sign back in the next time you visit. If you use a password manager like iCloud Keychain, this takes only a few seconds per site.
Does clearing cache and cookies delete my browsing history?
No. Clearing history, cache, and cookies are three separate actions in Safari. When you clear history, Safari removes the list of websites you visited. When you clear cache and cookies, you remove stored files and tracking data but not the history list itself. You can clear history separately if you want.
Can I clear cookies from just one website?
On Mac, yes. Go to Safari > Preferences > Privacy, click Manage Website Data, find the site in the list, and click Remove. On iPhone and iPad, you can only clear all cookies at once through Settings.
Does Safari have a private browsing mode?
Yes. Safari's Private Browsing mode (called Private Tabs on iPhone and iPad) does not store history, cache, or cookies while you are browsing. When you close a private tab, all data from that session is deleted. However, your internet service provider and the websites you visit can still see your activity — private browsing only hides it from other people using your device and from Safari itself.
Should I clear cache and cookies before selling my device?
Yes. Before you sell, trade in, or give away an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, clear all cache, cookies, and browsing history. Better yet, perform a factory reset (erase all content and settings on iPhone and iPad, or erase the Mac and reinstall the operating system). This removes all personal data, not just Safari data.