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How to Clear Your Browsing History and Cache in Chrome

Tap through each step to see how to clear out old browsing data.

  1. Go to Settings, Privacy and security, Clear browsing data

    Open Chrome settings and go to the "Privacy and security" menu, then "Clear browsing data."

  2. Choose the time range to clear

    Pick a range such as "Last hour," "Last 24 hours," or "All time."

  3. Check the items you want to delete

    Check whichever items you want removed: browsing history, cookies and other site data, or cached images and files.

  4. Click "Clear data"

    Clicking the button immediately deletes everything you selected, for the time range you chose.

  5. Why it is worth using

    Whether you want to tidy up your personal information or a site keeps displaying oddly because of stale cache, clearing your history and cache resolves the problem.

When you want to tidy up, or a site is behaving strangely

A site that suddenly looks broken, shows outdated content, or will not load a recent update is often just serving up an old cached version of itself rather than fetching anything fresh. Clearing cached data forces the browser to pull everything down again from scratch, which resolves the vast majority of these display glitches without needing to touch anything else.

Being selective about what you clear matters

Not every checkbox in this menu behaves the same way, so it is worth understanding what each one actually does before clicking "Clear data." Cache and history are low-risk to clear regularly, but cookies and site data double as what keeps you signed in everywhere -- clearing that category logs you out of essentially every site at once, which is easy to regret if it was not the intent.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does clearing my history also delete saved passwords?

No -- unless you separately check "Passwords and other sign-in data," your saved passwords stay exactly as they are.

Does clearing history log me out of everything?

If you also clear "Cookies and other site data" along with it, you will be logged out of most sites and need to sign back in. Leave that item unchecked if you want to stay signed in.