Chrome Story

How do you clear browsing data for individual sites or for all sites on your Chromebook? This article explains various methods to delete the data.

Before you Start – The Difference Between Cache and Data

Browser cache is a collection of files, typically images, CSS and Javascript files, that a website stores on your computer so that the site loads faster when you visit it again.

For example, let us take a look at Chrome Story’s logo here. Unlike my site’s design (which, unfortunately, I change quite often) the logo does not change often. If you are a regular reader of Chrome Story (hint – subscribe!!), your browser should not be downloading that logo every time you visit the site, correct? So, we store that on your computer, locally.

The next time you visit Chrome Story, the logo loads from your computer, instead of downloading from the server. This makes it MUCH faster.

If you want to learn more about Cache and cookies, here is an excellent article by WP Rocket.

When you clear Data, however, you are not just clearing the cache. Clearing data will delete so many other things. To clear ONLY cache, select “Cached images and files” from the list of things you can clear.

Delete Chrome Data for All Sites

To delete Chrome’s data for all sites:

Click the Settings icon (three dots) on the top-right corner of the Chrome window. From the menu that appears, select More Tools and then click Clear Browsing Data.

On the next screen, you can either choose Basic options or Advanced for more controls. Before I explain what those settings, let me tell you about two other ways to access this page easily.

Clear Chrome Browser Data Using Keyboard Shortcut

You can open the Clear browsing data screen using a keyboard shortcut too:

• Windows: CTRL + SHIFT + DELETE
• macOS: SHIFT + COMMAND + BACKSPACE

There is one more way to access this page. You can open a new Chrome tab and copy and paste the following and you will reach the Clear browsing data page:

chrome://settings/clearBrowserData

Clear Chrome Browing Data – Basic Options

Time Range: This is a dropdown list. You can select from the following options:

• All time
• Last 4 weeks
• Last 7 days
• Last 24 hours
• Last hour

Next, you have the following options. You can select one or more from these:

• Browsing History: As the name suggests, this is the list of all the websites you have visited in the past.
• Cookies and other site data: This is the data that websites store on your computer, specifically on Chrome, to enable certain features and the like. Most of the time this is harmless. However, occasionally, you would want to clear cookies to reset things. You will be logged out of any websites that you have logged into.
• Cached images and files: Websites store some images and files on your computer so that their pages will load faster the next time you visit their website. Some of these automatically get deleted after a time period. However, occasionally, you might be asked to clear cached files and images to fix certain issues.

After you choose what you want to delete and also the time range, click Clear Data, and you are done!

Clear Chrome Browsing Data on Chromebook – Advanced Options

The “Advanced” section of the “Clear browsing data” screen offers more control over what is deleted. You still have the data range dropdown, with the same options from the Basic screen. However, you will now see a longer list of options to select from after that.

• Browsing history: List of sites you visited using Chrome
• Download history: Records of all your downloads using Chrome
• Cookies and other site data: Cookies and other data that websites have stored in Chrome.
• Cached images and files: Images and files stored to make repeat visits to websites faster.
• Passwords and other sign-in data
• Site settings: Site-specific settings like zoom or permissions like notifications and sound.
• Hosted app data

For most of these items, Chrome will show you how many or how much data will be deleted. Select what you want to delete and the data range, click Clear Data, and you are done!

Clear Chrome Browsing Data on Android

To clear the data on the Android version of Chrome, tap the menu icon (three dots) and then choose Privacy, and then Clear Browsing Data from the next screen.

You will see a screen similar to what we have on the desktop version of Chrome. Select the date range and the items you want to clear and tap “Clear data ” and you are done!

The Android version of Chrome also offers Basic and Advanced versions of clearing data.

Clearing Data for Individual Sites

To open similar settings for individual websites:

Open the website and click the lock symbol in the address bar. This appears at the beginning of the address of the website.

Now, click “Site Settings” A new tab will open with settings for the current website. Click Clear Data.

On the confirmation screen that appears, click Clear, and you are done.

You can use the same screen to review the permissions and settings used by this website and change them as required.

Hope you found this tutorial useful. Drop me a comment if you have any questions or corrections to this article.