Advanced View
The Advanced view can seem daunting at first look, but it's really quite easy once you get the hang of it. You can completely customize how your cookies are managed. Custom removal schedules and selective removal of data is easy to configure once you understand how Cookie works. First lets look at how the Interface is layed out.
User Interface
The first thing you will likely notice is the Play and Pause buttons at the top of the window. These are handy global Enable and Disable buttons, used to quickly enable or disable ALL Cookie automatic removals. (which are configured on the Removal Options tab. These options are also included as menu options in Cookie's menubar.
To the left is the sidebar with all your installed browsers. Enabled browsers are displayed under the Protected heading, and Disabled browsers under the Disabled heading. You can customize the order of your Browsers by drag and drop.
On the right is where you configure Cookie on the various tabs:
Websites tab
this is where you check favorite websites you want to KEEP cookies for.
Unwanted Data tab
here you tell cookie what to remove.
Removal Options tab
here you tell cookie when to remove your previous selection.
Timer Options tab
here you tell cookie what to remove when the timer fires.
To the right of the tabs, you will find some useful buttons. First up is the Permissions button, here you can quickly open a view to see and edit Cookie's system file access. Next up is the View button, which enables you to quickly change to the Simple View. You most likely won't use this - but is a quick way to switch to the Simple view if you find the Advanced view too overwhelming. Next to the View button,is a button to quickly access Settings.
The Browser Settings view enables you to customize Cookie's system file access, and in the case of Firefox or Chrome based browsers - manage the Cookie Browser Extension.
Permissions
It is possible to give Cookie Global access to your User folder. This is the simplest and quickest way to ensure Cookie has the access it needs to your browser data. Alternatively you can also choose to only allow Cookie access to specific locations. This option offers a higher level of security, ensuring Cookie can only access locations you choose. When selecting individual permissions, you will need to give Cookie permission for each supported browser.
Cookie Browser Extension
Also available on this view, you can enable and install the Cookie Browser Extension. (not available for Safari 😞)
Now you know your way around Cookie, you need to customize how it runs, it's easy, and is done like so:
-
Select favorite websites to keep cookies for on the Websites
tab.
- Select removal data on the Unwanted Data tab.
- Choose removal schedules on the Removal Options tab.
- Configure timer removal data on the Timer Options tab.
Directly below the Tabs bar, you will find the status bar. You will find useful information on the current state of your browser cookies here.
On the Websites tab, you will see a list of all websites which store cookies in all of your enabled browsers grouped together. You can filter the list by browser using the browser sidebar. You can further filter cookies by type, using the Show: button dropdown. The search bar allows to to filter by name
For each domain name in the list you will see a number in brackets - this indicates how many cookies are related to that website. If you see a Red colored number in brackets - this indicates how many of the cookies are tracking cookies. A Blue color indicates whitelisted cookies, and a Green color indicates Browser Extensions. To view individual cookies, click the small triangle icon to expand the website. Once expanded you can see exactly what types of cookie and any attributes they may have that are stored in the website. You will also see a number of icons to the left of the window:
Below the domains, you will find some manual removal buttons, and some handy shortcut buttons:
A 3check in the Heart icon column
indicates the website is a Favorite.
A circle in the Plus icon column
indicates the website contains Browser Extensions.
A circle in the Location icon column
indicates the website contains Tracking Cookies.
A circle in the Checkmark icon column
indicates the website contains Whitelisted Cookies.
3. If a dash is displayed instead of a check mark - this indicates that not all cookies under the website are favorites! This is most commonly seen when ALL is selected in the browser sidebar. For example you may have the website cookierocks.com marked as a favorite in Safari, but not in Firefox.
Favorites
Your 4CHECKED websites will never be removed automatically by Cookie. You can remove them manually only by using the Remove button on the Websites tab. You can also only manually select a favorite if you already have a cookie on your computer from previously visiting the website.
4. If favorite is displayed without the triangle indicator, and is a dull gray color - this indicates that the cookie is a favorite, but is NOT currently stored in the browser.
Tracking Cookies
These are cookies which have been identified as one's which may track your browsing habits. They are conveniently RED colored for easy identification. You can completely customize how Cookie identifies tracking cookies in the Tracking Cookie Editor. This is accessed by way of contextual menu, or by clicking the shortcut icon.
Browser Extensions
You very rarely want to remove browser extensions as they are needed by any extension's you may have installed. Any adblockers or password managers etc... that you use in your browser would see unexpected results if you happened to remove any corresponding cookies.
Whitelisted Cookies
You very rarely need to whitelist a cookie, but it is a useful feature. In some cases Cookie gets it wrong, and flags a cookie as a Tracking cookie. This can cause sometimes login issues for you, but is easily fixed by whitelisting any offending tracking cookies. You add individual cookies to the whitelist via the contextual menu. Alternatively you can by manually editing definitions in the Tracking Cookie Editor.
Shortcut Icons
The shortcut icons are the group of icons at the bottom right of the Websites tab. Clicking on any of the icons will reveal handy shortcuts.
The Unwanted Data tab is where you tell Cookie what it can remove. Cookie can not remove anything unless you allow it first. You can select Unwanted data and apply it globally to all your enabled browsers, or if you prefer for each individual browser.
If a dash is displayed instead of a check mark for any settings - this indicates that not all browsers have this particular setting checked. This can occur, when you choose to configure browsers individually, rather than globally.
Tracking Cookies
these are any cookies which Cookie determines as a cookie which tracks you.
Non-Favorites
any cookies which are UNCHECKED as favorites on the Websites tab.
Cache
the cache stores files used by sites you visit to help speed up browsing if you re-visit the site again at a later date. Images, style sheets and video files are a few things stored in the cache.
History
your browser history.
Favicons
the small icons which display in your browser next to the website address in the url bar, and sometimes also on any browser tabs.
Webpage previews
these are snapshots which browsers periodically take of webpages you visit. Safari uses these in Tab expose.
Form values
any text you fill out on a webpage is stored as a form value.
Downloads
everything you've chosen to download to your computer from your browser. For example; app updates, torrent files, movies etc.
Website Settings
any website specific options. For example; autoplay settings, page zoom, microphone and camera access.
Other search engines
some browsers save custom search engines (if available) for each site you visit.
While tracking cookies, and non-favorites are removed per website, all other data types are not... For example you can not only remove history and cache for a particular website and not others. It is all websites, or no websites. This is true for cache, history, favicons, webpage previews, form values, downloads, website Settings and Other search engines.
This tab is where you tell Cookie when you want the data you previously selected removed. Once again, all these options can be configured globally or on a per browser basis.
On Quit
Cookie will remove your unwanted data from ALL browsers when you Quit Cookie.
On Browser Quit
browser data will be removed whenever you quit one of your enabled browsers. For example, if Unwanted data has been selected for Firefox, and Firefox is Quit, Firefox data only will be removed.
Every x minutes while Browser is Open
I don't generally recommend using ths option as it can cause issues on some websites. But some people may find it useful. Timers when set, will only run while an enabled browser is open and will run independent to all other browser timers even if multiple browsers have timers set. Timers are also configured independently to regular removal options.
When computer wakes from Sleep
Cookie will remove your unwanted data from ALL browsers when you wake your computer.
At Login
As above, Cookie will remove your unwanted data from ALL browsers at Login (as long as you have configured Cookie to open at Login in Settings).
The Pause/Enable Automatic Removal buttons are important buttons. You can use them to quickly disable/enable ALL running timers and removal schedules
The Timer Options tab, is very similar in appearance to the Removal Options tab. This may seem a little confusing at once. But Cookie is designed this way, so that you can completely customize your removal schedules.
For example, you may want to remove all data on browser quit, but remove only tracking cookies every 15 minutes while your browser is running.
To correctly set a timer, you need to:
Timers can be configured globally across ALL browsers, or per browser. Also, any options you set on this tab, are ONLY fired if you have also chacked the option "Every X minutes while Browser is open" on the Removal Options tab.
Most users will likely never need to customize this feature of Cookie, but it is a very important core function of Cookie. Upon opening, you will see 2 tabs:
Tracking Cookies
The Tracking cookies tab holds stores all of Cookie's tracking cookie definitions. You can edit this as you please, if you find Cookie's list inadequate. Export/Import and restoration of defaults is possible from this tab.
Cookie defines any cookie as a tracking cookie if it's name value matches any of the names matched in this list. Cookie also understands simple regex, so for example using the * wilcard in a definition will match number of characters at that position in the name. ie:
cat* will match cookies:
it will not match:
Whitelist
On the Whitelist tab you will find any custom whitelist
definitions you may have created. You can manually add or remove as required.
