-
Notifications
You must be signed in to change notification settings - Fork 1
Documentation
Cookie AutoDelete V3 is a Manifest V3 fork of Cookie AutoDelete. It automatically deletes cookies (and, optionally, other site data) once they're no longer used by open tabs, so sites you didn't explicitly choose to keep don't stay logged in or tracked between visits. Sites you want to keep are added to a KeepList/WhiteList or a RestartList/GreyList so their cookies survive cleanup.
The extension ships from a single codebase to both Chromium-based browsers (Chrome, Edge, Brave, Vivaldi) and Firefox; the two builds differ only in a small manifest patch. Supported browser versions are Chrome/Edge 109+ and Firefox 115+.
The Settings tab groups the options below into four sections. Export, Import, and Reset buttons at the top of the tab let you save your settings to a JSON file, load them back in, or restore every setting to its default.
Default: Enabled. The master switch for automatic cleanup. While on, Cookie AutoDelete removes cookies (and any enabled site data types) for domains that are not in your whitelist or greylist as tabs close or domains change, subject to the other settings in this section. Turning it off stops automatic cleanup entirely; you can still clean manually from the popup.
Default: 15 seconds. How long Cookie AutoDelete waits after a tab closes (or a domain change is detected) before running a cleanup, giving you a chance to reopen the tab without losing its cookies.
Default: Disabled. When enabled, tabs that the browser has discarded (unloaded from memory to save resources, but still shown in the tab strip) are treated the same as closed tabs for cleanup purposes.
Default: Disabled. When enabled, cleanup also runs when a tab navigates from one domain to another, not only when a tab is closed.
Default: Enabled. Controls whether domains on the RestartList/GreyList are cleaned when the browser starts up. The greylist is meant to hold cookies only until the next restart; this setting is what enforces that on startup.
Default: Disabled. When enabled, on browser startup Cookie AutoDelete also cleans cookies and other site data for domains that are currently open in tabs (not just closed ones), as long as they aren't protected by the whitelist or greylist.
Default: Disabled. When enabled, Cookie AutoDelete additionally removes cookies that have already passed their expiration date but that the browser hasn't yet purged on its own.
Default: —. These are the default values applied to a new entry when you add a domain or expression to the whitelist or greylist (for example, from the popup or the right-click menu): which site data types are cleaned alongside cookies, and whether only first-party cookies are kept. See the Expression List section below for how individual expressions can override these defaults.
Other Browsing Data Cleanup Options extend automatic cleanup beyond cookies to the
non-cookie site data types below. These cleanups go through the browser's
browsingData API, which is host-scoped only — it is not aware of storage
partitioning, so clearing a host's data clears it for that host across all of its
partitions. This is not available on Firefox for Android. To catch first-party
sites that leave no cookie behind, Cookie AutoDelete maintains an internal registry
of visited hostnames whenever any of the types below is enabled, and sweeps it on
every cleanup run so those sites are still cleaned even without a cookie to key
off of.
Default: Enabled. When you turn on one of the site data types below for the first time, this setting also cleans any data of that type left over from before it was enabled, instead of only clearing data going forward.
Default: Disabled. Includes the browser's cache in automatic cleanup.
Default: Disabled. Includes File System API data in automatic cleanup.
Chromium only — Firefox does not expose this browsingData type.
Default: Disabled. Includes IndexedDB databases in automatic cleanup.
Default: Disabled. Includes localStorage in automatic cleanup.
Default: Disabled. Includes plugin (e.g. Flash) data in automatic cleanup. This browsing data type is deprecated and has no effect on Chromium-based browsers; it is kept for compatibility.
Default: Disabled. Includes registered service workers in automatic cleanup.
Default: Disabled. Firefox only. Turns on per-container handling so that whitelist/greylist expressions and cleanup are scoped to Firefox's Contextual Identities (container tabs) individually, rather than treating all containers the same.
Default: Enabled. Firefox only. When a container is deleted in Firefox, this also deletes the expression list that belonged to that container instead of leaving it behind.
Default: Enabled. Enables the Activity Log tab and the cookie-deletion counters. When disabled, cleanup still happens but nothing is recorded.
Default: Enabled. Shows the number of cookies for the active tab's domain as a badge on the toolbar icon.
Default: Disabled. When disabled, the icon color reflects whether the current domain is on the whitelist, the greylist, or neither. When enabled, the icon stays the default color regardless of list membership.
Default: Enabled. Shows a browser notification summarizing what was cleaned after an automatic cleanup runs.
Default: Enabled. Shows a browser notification when you manually trigger a site data cleanup (for example, from the popup or context menu).
Default: 3 seconds. How long cleanup notifications stay on screen before automatically dismissing.
Default: 16 px. Sets the font size used in the popup window.
Default: 16 px. Sets the font size used on the Settings pages.
Default: Enabled. Adds Cookie AutoDelete entries to the browser's right-click menu for quickly adding a domain/expression or manually cleaning, without opening the popup.
Default: Disabled. Enables additional console logging, useful when reporting or diagnosing an issue.
The Expression List (also called the List of Expressions) tab is where you manage the whitelist and greylist for the current container/store, and — on Firefox with container support enabled — for each container individually. New entries can be added directly here, from the popup, or from the browser's right-click context menu.
An expression can be a plain domain, such as google.com. When you enter a bare
domain, Cookie AutoDelete strips a leading www. from it, so www.google.com is
stored and matched as google.com; both google.com and www.google.com are then
treated as covered.
Expressions also support two pattern forms:
-
Wildcards. A
*matches any run of characters, so*.google.commatches any subdomain ofgoogle.com, andgi*b.commatches any domain that starts withgiand ends withb.com(for examplegithub.com). -
Regular expressions. Wrap the pattern in forward slashes, e.g.
/google\.(ca|com)/, to match with a full JavaScript regular expression instead of the simpler wildcard syntax.
You can add several expressions at once by separating them with commas, e.g.
google.com, bing.com, /google\.(ca|com)/ — each comma-separated entry (a regex's
internal commas are recognized and kept together) becomes its own entry on the
list. Commas are not otherwise allowed inside a single plain-domain or wildcard
expression.
Each entry also carries its own site-data and first-party-cookie options (seeded
from the Default Expression Options in Settings, described above), which you can
override per expression — for example, cleaning localStorage for one domain but
not another.
Domains on the KeepList/WhiteList are not touched by automatic cleanup. By default all cookies for a whitelisted domain are kept; to keep only specific cookies instead, uncheck "Keep All Cookies" on that expression and check the individual cookie names you want preserved. This is the list to use for sites you want to stay logged in to.
Domains on the RestartList/GreyList are kept only until the browser restarts. Whether the greylist is actually swept on startup is controlled by the "Enable GreyList Cleanup on Browser Restart" setting described above — with that setting on, greylisted cookies survive tab closures and domain changes during a browsing session but are cleaned the next time the browser starts.
On Chromium, cookies can be scoped to a specific storage partition (CHIPS —
Cookies Having Independent Partitioned State), so the same cookie name from
google.com can exist both as a normal first-party cookie and, separately, as a
cross-site partitioned cookie stored under a completely different top-level site
(for example, embedded under astynomia.gr). Because chrome.cookies.remove
accepts a partitionKey, Cookie AutoDelete can target that cross-site partitioned
copy on its own, without touching the legitimate first-party cookie.
The per-expression "First-party cookies only" option (firstPartyOnly on the
Expression) controls this: when enabled on a whitelisted domain's expression, its
cross-site partitioned cookies are deleted even though the domain itself is
whitelisted — only the true first-party cookie is kept.
This precision is cookie-only. The non-cookie site data types under Other
Browsing Data Cleanup Options (Cache, IndexedDB, LocalStorage, Service Workers,
File System) go through chrome.browsingData.remove*, which can only target a
whole host, not a single partition. Deleting a host's cache or storage would wipe
its data across every partition, including the legitimate first-party copy — so
Cookie AutoDelete intentionally leaves cross-site partitioned storage and cache
alone rather than risk that collateral damage. See
docs/chrome-vs-extensions-api.md in the repository for the full rationale.
Firefox only. When "Enable Support for Firefox's Container Tabs" is turned on in Settings, each Contextual Identity (container) gets its own independent whitelist/greylist, selectable from the store/container picker at the top of this tab. An expression added while a given container is selected applies only to that container, not to the default store or other containers.
The Export button downloads the current expression lists as a JSON file; Import loads expressions back in from a previously exported JSON file. Each expression in that file is an object with the following fields:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
expression |
The domain, wildcard, or /regex/ pattern. |
listType |
Which list the entry belongs to: whitelist or greylist. |
storeId |
The cookie store (container) the entry belongs to; default outside of Firefox container support. |
cookieNames |
Specific cookie names to keep, when not keeping all cookies. |
cleanAllCookies |
Whether all cookies for the domain are kept (unset/true) or only the names in cookieNames. |
cleanSiteData |
Which non-cookie site data types are also kept for this domain. |
firstPartyOnly |
Whether cross-site partitioned (CHIPS) cookies for this domain are deleted even though the domain is whitelisted — see First-party cookies only, above. |
id |
Internal identifier for the entry. |
The Cleanup Log (Activity Log) tab records what happened on each cleanup run, as long as "Enable Cleanup Log and Counter" is turned on in Settings — with that setting off, cleanup still runs but nothing is logged. Each entry shows when a cleanup happened and, for every site involved, whether its cookies/data were cleaned or kept and why (for example, because it matched a whitelist or greylist expression). This is the place to check when a site behaves unexpectedly, to confirm whether an expression is matching the way you intended. A "Clear" button lets you empty the log.
The About tab shows the installed version of Cookie AutoDelete, links to the project's GitHub repository (issues and releases) and its wiki documentation, and credits the contributors, including the original Cookie AutoDelete project this extension is forked from. It also includes a debug panel that assembles your OS, browser, and current settings into a block of text you can copy and paste when reporting an issue. Cookie AutoDelete is released under the MIT license.