Delete cookies in Safari manually

Question

I tried deleting Cookies in Safari manually, by deleting ~Library/Cookies, ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari and ~/Library/Safari.

The folders gets deleted, but the next time I launch Safari all cookies are restored. I am logged in all websites.

What did just happen? Why can't I delete cookies?

Answer 1

Yes, there is a way to effectively remove all cookies from Safari via the terminal as well, preventing the auto-restore phenomenon you described. I wrote a simple shell script some time ago to achieve this.

I tested this on macOS 10.12.3 and Safari 10.0.3 and it works.

Warning: The tests I did weren't as thorough, meaning: some of the files deleted by this script might not actually be necessary in order to achieve the removal of the cookies, you should trial-and-error your way around it to narrow it down if you like. I personally use the script 'as is', but in your personal situation that might mean you'll lose some data that you actually wanted to keep.

Copy this into a simple shell script and run it (be sure to also copy the 'killall' command):

rm -rf ~/Library/Safari/History*
rm -rf ~/Library/Safari/Auto*
rm -rf ~/Library/Safari/LocalStorage
rm -rf ~/Library/Safari/Downloads.*
rm -rf ~/Library/Safari/Databases
rm -rf ~/Library/Safari/SearchDescriptions.plist
rm -rf ~/Library/Safari/WebFeedSources.plist
rm -rf ~/Library/Safari/Last*
rm -rf ~/Library/Safari/Recently*
rm -rf ~/Library/WebKit/com.apple.Safari
rm -rf /Library/Cookies
rm -rf ~/Library/Cookies
rm -rf ~/Library/Caches
rm -rf /Library/Caches
rm -rf ~/Library/Application Support/Oracle/Java/Deployment/cache
rm -rf ~/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/*
rm -rf ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Safari.*
rm -rf ~/Library/Application Support/com.apple.sharedfilelist/*
rm -rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.coreservices.useractivityd.dynamicuseractivites
rm -rf ~/Library/Preferences/*SpotlightNetHelper*
rm -rf ~/.oracle_jre_usage
rm -rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.sharekit.recents.plist
rm -rf ~/Library/Saved*

killall -KILL nsurlstoraged 

Answer 2

To delete all your cookies/stored website data in Safari:

1. Open Safari
2. On the menubar at the top of your screen, hit "Safari", then click "Preferences"
3. Go to the Privacy tab of the preferences menu
4. Click "Remove all website data".

This should remove all the cookies that websites have stored on your Mac.