safari cookies: where are they located?

Hi Gerben! I too had the same problem. On my MacBook Pro there was a cookie from “weather.com” that would NOT go away. I searched through every folder named Library, as well as the contents folder of Safari. Nada. I tried the “remove and remove all” commands that are built into Safari over and over with the same results: nada! I was about to give up when I DuckDuckGoed and came to your discussion page. I read down the replies and nothing was suggested that I had not already tried in vain. Then I came to Scotch Brawth’s suggestion that I “Install CCleaner from the App Store.“ I could not find CCleaner in the App Store but it was on the web. I cleaned cookies and a bunch of other stuff, but, the cookie “who shall not be named” was still there. Then, out of the blue, I remembered ONYX from Titanium Software (https://www.titanium-software.fr/en/index.html). I downloaded the correct version for my OSX software and ran the cookie cleaning sections. To my utter delight, when I opened Safari and checked for “weather.com,” it was GONE! I know for a fact that Onyx will work! So go get a copy and sleep easier tonight.

For macOS Sierra 10.12.6 and Safari 11.0.1, most likely, the cookies and references to websites that survive clicking -- the "Remove" and "Remove All" buttons in the Safari->Preferences->Privacy->Manage Website Data pane -- reside in each user's or account's library.

In the Utilities/Terminal.app, type

rm -frP ~/Library/Safari/Databases/* ~/Library/Safari/LocalStorage/*

That command line will terminate with extreme prejudice the files where those persistent annoyances reside.

Unix shell command line to English translation:

1. rm is the name of the Unix command that deletes files from the filesystem.
2. f in -frP forces rm to work quietly without complaints or asking for permission before doing anything.
3. r in -frP instructs rm to traverse or walk the filesystem sub-tree beneath each of the pathnames that follow.
4. P in -frP tells rm to overwrite each file or directory with junk before unlinking either a file or directory from its parent directory.
5. The ~ (tilde) before each pathname is an abbreviation for $HOME or "my home directory."
6. The / (slash) separates directory names in pathnames; do not replace it with any other character.
7. The * (asterisc) after each pathname is an abbreviation for "everything that resides beyond."

Running that command line from inside an AppleScript when Safari is shut down would be ideal, but if that isn't possible, running that command from a cron file once a day would be acceptable.

To enter in user library an article : OS X El Capitan: Library folder

You will find caches , cookies folders , in side these folders temp files are located , which are created when browsing websites .

You are directing all of those commands to the main ("All users") library. You need to delete the stuff in your user Library. Its path is /Users/shortUserName/Library. Or, ~/Library should work.

Why don't you just turn on Private Browsing?

If you search for it, you will find a few things on flushing the cache. I'm not sure if those are valid any longer.

Safari caches cookies in memory, so if you delete those files while it's still running and then quit, they'll be written back to disk.

Install CCleaner from the App Store. It allows you to manage cookies and caches for all installed web browsers, as well as other useful things. It's free. One of the best things is the cookie management, which allows you to whitelist certain cookies so that, when running the Delete Cookies function, the ones you whitelisted are left alone. Very useful for not deleting login cookies for your favourite sites.

If you're really concerned about browsing privately, install and use the TorBrowserBundle. This will leave no browsing traces whatsoever once closed. Make sure to read some of the information on that website so that you understand the benefits and limits of using that software.

You would have to delete the cookies from within the Safari interface, or else unload the launchd job that starts cookied.

Its odd that Safari is continuing to show the cookies, but they are stored in the following directories:

~/Library/Safari/LocalStorage/

~/Library/WebKit/LocalStorage/

..so removing the contents of this will clear them and the database that interfaces with them.

There is also a media cache in $TMPDIR/com.appleWebKit.WebContent+com.apple.Safari, which may also be represented in the Safari preference (not sure though).