COOKIE BASICS
Cookies vs. cache vs. browsing history
Understand what each browser-data category stores and choose the one that solves your problem.
The short answer
Cookies remember website state, the cache stores reusable page files, and history records pages you visited. They are separate categories. Select only the category—and time range—that matches your goal.
The difference at a glance
| Data | What it does | What deletion changes |
|---|---|---|
| Cookies and site data | Remember sessions, preferences, carts, consent, and other website state | May sign you out and reset website behavior |
| Cache | Keeps local copies of page resources so they can load faster | Pages may load more slowly once while files are downloaded again |
| Browsing history | Records pages visited in that browser and supports history suggestions | Removes those local visit records and related suggestions |
| Saved passwords | Stores credentials in the browser or password manager | Removes credentials only when this separate category is selected |
When to clear the cache
Clear cached images and files when a page repeatedly shows stale or corrupted resources after a normal reload. The website will usually download fresh copies on the next visit.
A hard reload or the site’s own refresh control may solve a display problem without deleting all cached data.
When to clear history
Clear history when you want to remove the browser’s local record and its history-based address suggestions. This does not necessarily delete cookies, cache, account activity stored by a service, or synced history on other systems.
Choose only what solves the problem
Browser deletion dialogs often select several categories at once. Read every checked box and the time range. For a broken website, start with that site’s cookies. For stale files, start with cache. For the local list of visited pages, choose history.
Google’s browsing-data guide documents these categories separately and notes that account activity and saved passwords may have separate controls.