Why can't I delete website data in iOS 10.3?

I found a solution and I originally posted it at Cookies won't delete on iOS. I found this thread has a lot of reviews and I will repost here.

I tested on both ios 11.1 beta 3 on my iphone 8 and 11.0.3 on my ipad.

I have this problem since ios 10 on iphone 5s. After I bought an iphone 8 recently and used the backup from the iphone 5s to restore, the "persistent" cookies migrated to the new device. I also bought an iPad Pro and used the backup from the phone to set it up, the "persistent" cookies migrated to the ipad as well.

All the operations and software are under windows. What you need to do is:

Step 1: Use iTunes or a third party software to make a backup of your device.

Step 2: Use a third party software (I used iMazing because it is the one I found that can edit the backup. This is not supposed to be an advertisement.) to edit the backup. To do this you first need to select the backup you made and click the edit button. Then you need to remove all the files in the editable backup under "File System/Apps/AppDomain-com.apple.mobilesafari/Library/WebKit/WebsiteData/WebSQL/ ". You will be able to see all the cookies that you can not delete at this location. I this the absolute path in the actual file system is /var/mobile/Application/com.apple.mobilesafari/Library/WebKit/WebsiteData/WebSQ L/.

Step 3: Usw iTunes or a third party software to restore the backup.

Note: The backup should not be encrypted.

The solution is quite technical, and I hope apple devs can fix this problem soon.

The data that remains is there if you have selected Do Not Track, Allow From..., or any of the Privacy & Security settings.

The solution I found to work was to

1.) Deselect all Privacy & Security settings

2.) Block Cookies > Always Block

3.) Delete what you want

4.) Restart

There might be some residual cookies or data that remain.

FINALLY! The recent update for 11.2 I just installed finally fixed the issue! I'm not sure when this "supercookie" Safari browser issue was first reported to Apple, but since this thread's original post date... that's 215 days (for anyone counting).

I just downloaded 11.2.5. At first it did not work. I would click on the “clear history and website data” but the 0 byte websites were still there. However, I did find something that did work.

i changed the default search engine from yahoo to google. Then I went to advanced and started deleting a few of the 0 byte websites one by one then clicked “remove all website data”. When I went back to see if the 0 byte data was still there. I noticed some of the websites were no longer there. So I repeated this process of manually deleting a few and then clicking “remove all website data”. Finally, they were all gone. No more 0 byte websites. Now when I use the “clear history and website data” it actually works and it clears everything. I no longer see the 0 byte websites. I switched back the search engine to yahoo and the “clear history and website data” still works. No 0 byte websites. So I don’t think changing the default search browser made a difference but I thought i’d still list what I did.

FYI - my phone is an 8 Plus

Hope it helps.

I had this problem. I just updated to the rushed to customers iOS 11.2. I cleared my data and the cookies that couldn’t be deleted are now gone. So apparently they fixed it in this release.

You must do a clean install to remove all cookies for it to work correctly. When upgrading, it still retains its original website databases. I tested this extensively on several iPads and the ones that did a clean install, I was able to remove all website data when I wanted.

Have you logged in or searched from any/all of those sites?

Just wondering...I’ve had success in deleting cookies in iOS10 by clearing my web data or individual cookie while being logged into the site. In fact, I was never able to delete any persistent cookies without logging in or searching from within the site.

No this problem is still not fixed! I've just spent a frustrating hour online with two different Apple Support Advisors who confirmed this is an ongoing issue that is "still under investigation". Their lame recommendation was to keep updating my devices and maybe, just maybe, it'll be fixed one day in the future. Very disappointing to say the least.

What started out for me was 3 files of 0bytes in length has now grown to more than a dozen consuming 1.8MB that can't be reclaimed. This problem has all the earmarks of a memory/filesystem corruption issue. It was introduced in iOS 10.3 with the major change moving to the new Apple File System (APFS). I'm not sure how much hardware support that APFS has in the chipsets running on the devices and I only hope that its not a hardware design flaw that's contributing to this issue. All I know, it has been going on too long for it to be some minor software problem and Apple is being too quiet on the problem.

Appears that negative press spurs Apple into action. Like the Autocorrect bug and the slow-down-phone-due-to-battery issues. Maybe this issue needs some "outside of forum discussion" to bring attention to the problem. Not being able to delete files on your mobile devices is a major security concern and deserves more attention than it's getting!

Well well we’ll, low and behold.....I have updated to iOS 11 and this seems to have cured the website data problem. I am able to delete all those pesky websites completely. About time to Apple

Don’t go to Costco.com, you’ll get that evercookie of death. I have never ever ever seen a 2048 cookie until visiting their website, their despicably intrusive along with thedashcamstore.com. I was thinking and using chrome as they do have a remove all website data feature, but they do not individually list their cookies, so do you really know they do remove all? And MacOS, you can physically see them in the library the ever cookies and is the user->library->safari->databases. I just delete all contents in this folder and restart Safari.

One thing works for me in macbook and it might work for ios

I went to safari>preferences>privacy>manage website data

I tried to delete the websites but it keeps coming back

I went to those websites in safari and closed it in safari

I went back to preferences and it stayed deleted.

So try opening the websites that won't delete in safari and close it

Then try to delete it in preferences.

Since iOS 11 update this issue has been resolved.

I don’t know what anyone else thinks about this but can you see the underlying issue? Doing a backup restore on a new device will just carry EVERYTHING over from the old device surely as seems To be the case here and with others. I did a brand new device restore with iOS 11 and am still enjoying free cookies deletion. Just a thought.

i cannot edit my previous post. I got repeated error messages when i tried to save the changes, and now i don't even get an "Edit" control for the post at all. Congratulations, Apple. Also, would someone fix the stupid arrow key (SmartKeyboard on iPad) behavior on these forums? Every time i try to move the cursor, the page scroll jumps to the bottom. This buggy behavior has been spreading across the internet as forum software (MacRumors told me it was the forum software and nothing they have control over) gets updated around the web. No one seems to care. Am i the only one regularly using an iPad with a keyboard?? Tim Cook seems to think an iPad Pro is a replacement for a laptop, so maybe he hasn't bothered to use forums anywhere...

Since i can't edit my original post, updated post here:

i recommend we take this to Apple Insider, MacRumors, etc. websites to get some public attention on this. This is indeed a privacy issue at the very least. [but it's also a storage space waster]

In case anyone cares, i have this problem with ALL [site data entries] on my iOS devices. I can't delete a single one that's left, and there are a ton left because i hadn't cleared it out in a long time. ****, my History even states using 4.5MB (for HISTORY!).

If i do a lot of individual swiping [to delete entries] or press the "Clear History and Website Data" button/linkthing, and then try to list Website Data, it will sit spinning the "Loading..." [indicator] forever. Only a reboot will let me view the list again, but what's the point anyway, since it's useless for anything but letting the user know they have NO CONTROL over their browser's stored data!

Reset all settings works. A bit of a pain after though.