Clearing Safari website data does not delete everything - iPhone

FIXED!!!

Yesterday I updated my iPad and iPhone to iOS 11.2, and I have been testing it - I just have to "Clear History and Data" for Safari under Settings, and then when I subsequently go into the advanced setting, the web site data is all gone - even the 0 byte ones! I have restarted and it is still clear. It sure seems Apple has finally fixed this in iOS 11.2.

Try and post if it works for you!!!

Hello,

I am having the same issue as others here, as some Website Data isn't deleting.

I have heard from another user (I have not tried this myself yet) that going to:

Settings > General > Reset > Reset All Settings, fixed it for them.

I would suggest that everyone experiencing this to leave a detailed report to Apple so they are aware of this. Include things such as when it started or ways you've tried to fix it. This will all help Apple understand what may be going on.

Here's the link:

iPhone Feedback - Apple

Lawrence, as Lady Engineer explains, the 0 byte cookies do provide some browsing activity information to third parties. The Safari cookie retention problem has been around since my first iPhone5 in 2012 and, perhaps, before. I have too great a respect for Apple's programming capability to even think Safari's cookie retention is a programming oversight over several versions of iOS. It is policy.

Cookies that reappear after being deleted are generically called zombie cookies - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_cookie

"A zombie cookie is a cookie that is automatically recreated after being deleted. This is accomplished by storing the cookie's content in multiple locations, such as Flash Local shared object, HTML5 Web storage, and other client-side and even server-side locations. When the cookie's absence is detected, the cookie is recreated using the data stored in these locations."

The iOS 11 version of Safari has made cookie control control worse rather than better.

I closed Safari, Cleared History and Website Data in Safari settings, deleted the remaining cookies manually and restarted the iPhone 7, I’ve been hit four or five normal websites like Netflix, Apple Discussions, Redbook, and the Washington Post.

(continued below)

Lawrence, I know of no app that associates with the cookies in the image in my post just above. My guess is that you, ParhamS and others in this thread now using iOS 11 will also find many cookies from sites you haven’t visited.

Close Safari, clear data using the Clear History and Website Data button, clear the residual ones manually, restart the phone, use Safari normally for a couple of days, then recheck Settings>Safari>Advanced>Website Data.

I’ll bet you will have accumulated pages of cookies, only some of which you will recognize from visited sites.

The issue has definitely got worse with 10.3.3.

Logging bugs at http://www.apple.com/feedback has not a positive effect yet, as I've logged a bug for each iOS version that had this issue.

And you are not correct that Apple does not read this forum; note that there have been many Apple Community Specialist replies during the past several years .

(Continued from above - This website got flaky and would not let me Send the edits)

When I then checked my cookies, several unrecognized entries, and some unvisited sites I did recognize, existed again.

The picture shows the new Safari privacy options.

Given them the choices Safari now gives us, it seems using content blocker apps may be the only solution to not leaving privacy up to the goodwill of others. Three that I’m testing are Adblock Plus, 1Blocker and iCareFone.

If the data is displaying 0 bytes, I have had some success by (re)visting the websites in question, viewing a few pages, agreeing to the cookie policy, etc. Then going into settings and manually deleting the website data. This is far from a total fix, and doesn’t always work, but I have just removed 4 out of 5 of the cookies which have been lingering for the past couple of months using this method.

HI SocW, the issue resided in iOS on iPhone + iPad. Thanks for the intel on the Mac side, may have to use it someday. Pretty sad when Apple has full control over their code and refuses to fix this issue, that has been pointed to over 2k times on this forum. I believe they have no intentions of fixing it due to the alleged privacy issues they inject into their software by design, possibly motivated by income? maybe.

(Continued from above - it was sent accidentally) Redbox, not Redbook.

When I then checked my cookies, several unrecognized entries, and some unvisited sites I did recognize, existed again.

Give them the privacy choices Safari now gives us, it seems using content blocking apps may be the only solution. Three that I’m testing are Adblock Plus, 1Blocker and iCareFone.

I am not very good with computers but I had the same problem so I went to "~/library/safari/databases" and noticed file folders with sites that could not be deleted so I clicked on the file folders and sent them to trash and then went back to safari manage website data and the problem no longer existed.

This is getting very mysterious; I have not experienced anything like this. Are any of them related to apps you have installed? Many apps use the Safari engine to retrieve and manage data.

Website data won't clear no matter what

2 sites wayfair.com and Costco.com won't clear

period!