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Safari for Mac: Is there a way to delete only selected Cookies?

I've yet to see this in any web browser so I'll ask if anyone else has?

I have a few web sites which I don't ever want to erase cookies for. All the cookie managers I've seen so far are always an all-or-nothing affair when clearing private data and setting privacy preferences. I need finer grained control so that I can block cookies generally yet retain cookies specifically, even across "Clear private data" selections.

For example, to get the cookies setup for my bank, I'd 'allow all cookies' for the period I'm setting up. Since cookies seem to come from many places, it's next to impossible to predict that needed cookies will come from just one particular domain. So, allowing all cookies for a time is usually necessary.

Then, I'd like to mark those cookies as "Never erase" or the like, so that no matter what I set the privacy preferences to nor no matter how many times I clear out private data, those cookies would be retained (So I don't have to re-setup accounts etc.).

Is there anything like this for Safari or Firefox?

Thanks.

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.5)

Posted on May 2, 2008 5:28 PM

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Posted on May 2, 2008 8:28 PM

The following works for me.
Quit Safari and delete it's 'Cookies.plist' file.
~/Library/Cookies/ Cookies.plist
Launch Safari and surf to the sites you want the Cookies from, then quit Safari.
Archive (zip) Safari's Cookies.plist file and leave it in the ~/Library/Cookies folder.
Set Safari's Preferences to 'Accept cookies: Never'.
Remove Safari from the Dock and replace it with this AppleScript.
Safari Cookies Switch <http://tomx.890m.com/SafariCookiesSwitch.dmg>

BTW, I do the same thing with Camino.

Tom

Message was edited by: Tom
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Question marked as Best reply

May 2, 2008 8:28 PM in response to xl600

The following works for me.
Quit Safari and delete it's 'Cookies.plist' file.
~/Library/Cookies/ Cookies.plist
Launch Safari and surf to the sites you want the Cookies from, then quit Safari.
Archive (zip) Safari's Cookies.plist file and leave it in the ~/Library/Cookies folder.
Set Safari's Preferences to 'Accept cookies: Never'.
Remove Safari from the Dock and replace it with this AppleScript.
Safari Cookies Switch <http://tomx.890m.com/SafariCookiesSwitch.dmg>

BTW, I do the same thing with Camino.

Tom

Message was edited by: Tom

May 3, 2008 6:14 PM in response to Jpfresno

Actually, that's what I had tried before. It's a serious pain when there's a million cookies. Trying to sort through them and understand where they came from can be extremely tedious. Periodically, I like to just nuke them all but wish the "Reset Safari" function could nuke all cookies EXCEPT previously selected ones.

Cocoa Cookies seems to work just about exactly as I had hoped the built in manager would (Hint, hint Apple... It doesn't look like that tough of a thing to have built in!). So, I'll set Reset Safari not to mess with cookies and I'll manage them in Cocoa Cookies.

Thanks!

Safari for Mac: Is there a way to delete only selected Cookies?

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