How to Clear Chrome Data

Every once in a while you should delete Chrome’s data for faster load times and to correct erratic behavior. If this is your first time to do this, be patient, it may take a minute or so.

Google Chrome logo

If you’re trying to fix loading or formatting issues to improve your browsing experience on Google Chrome, clearing your data is an excellent place to start.

For example, if Chrome is slow or unresponsive or you change a document like deleting a sentence but the sentence is still there after saving the document, its time to clear your Chrome browser data. Before doing this, log out or exit your running applications. If an application’s behavior is erratic, its recommended you log out instead of just exiting the program.

This is for Google Chrome on multiple platforms

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What Happens When your Data is Deleted?

When you visit a website, it will save (or remember) certain information on your hard or SSD drive. Cookies save a user’s browsing data and cache (stored information) helps webpages load more quickly by remembering images, videos, text and other parts of the webpage from your last visit instead of reloading everything with each visit.

When you clear your data, all information gets deleted. You control how much data is deleted. The load time of previously visited sites will increase because Chrome needs to load the content of the webpage again.

Clearing Chrome’s Data

To clear your data in Chrome, you’ll need to access the browser’s Settings menu. There are three different ways to do this.

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The first way is to click the three vertical dots icon (the hamburger icon) in the top-right corner of the screen, hovering over the More Tools option and then selecting Clear Browsing Data. Refer to below image:

Clear Chrome 1
Clear your browing data option

In the above image, you may notice the shortcut key. To go straight to the page to clear your data, hold and press down on the Ctrl + Shift + Delete keys.

The third way is to enter chrome://settings/clearBrowserData in the address bar. See following image:

Alternate way to clear your browsing data

Now, the Clear Browsing Data window will be displayed.

The first thing you’ll do here is select the Time range for deleting the data. Click the drop down arrow next to Time range to expand the menu, then select the desired Time range; the default is All Time. It is recommended you use the default Time range. See below image:

Clear Chrome 3
Selecting your time range for clearing your data

Next, check the four boxes next to Browsing history, Download history, Cookies and 0ther site data and Cached images and files. If you want to clear passwords (not recommended), then checkmark Passwords and other sign-in data. Checking this box will force you to re-enter passwords you have setup before entering a website(s). Refer to below image:

Clear Chrome 4
Selecting your options for clearing data

Now click the Clear Data button to clear your data. See following image:

Clear Chrome 5
The last option for clearing your data

The process of clearing your data will take a litte while. If this is the first time, it may take several minutes, just be patient.

I Would Like to Hear from You

Please feel free to leave a comment. I would love hearing from you. Do you have a computer or smart device tech question? I will do my best to answer your inquiry. Please mention the device, app and version that you are using. To help us out, you can send screenshots of your data related to your question.

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Author: Raymond

I am Raymond Oglesby, an Information Technology (IT) specialist with 30 years in the field. I have taught Microsoft Applications and troubleshot computers in 15 countries and many States. My career was focused on mainframes and desktops from application development to implementation. I have written hundreds of programs for various architectures. I decided to start a blog to share my knowledge and experiences with you. I plan on updating this blog at least twice a week about smart phone apps to Windows. Please feel free to leave a Comment or Tweet. I would love to hear from you. Do you have a computer tech question? I will do my best to answer your inquiry. Please mention the app and version that you are using. To help me out, you can send screenshots of your data related to your question.

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