How to delete a cookie?

Question

Is my function of creating a cookie correct? How do I delete the cookie at the beginning of my program? is there a simple coding?

function createCookie(name,value,days)

function setCookie(c_name,value,1) {
  document.cookie = c_name + "=" +escape(value);
}

setCookie('cookie_name',mac);

function eraseCookie(c_name) {
  createCookie(cookie_name,"",-1);
}

Answer 1

Try this:

function delete_cookie( name, path, domain ) {
  if( get_cookie( name ) ) {
    document.cookie = name + "=" +
      ((path) ? ";path="+path:"")+
      ((domain)?";domain="+domain:"") +
      ";expires=Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:01 GMT";
  }
}

You can define get_cookie() like this:

function get_cookie(name){
    return document.cookie.split(';').some(c => {
        return c.trim().startsWith(name + '=');
    });
}

Answer 2

Here a good link on Quirksmode.

function setCookie(name,value,days) {
    var expires = "";
    if (days) {
        var date = new Date();
        date.setTime(date.getTime() + (days*24*60*60*1000));
        expires = "; expires=" + date.toUTCString();
    }
    document.cookie = name + "=" + (value || "")  + expires + "; path=/";
}
function getCookie(name) {
    var nameEQ = name + "=";
    var ca = document.cookie.split(';');
    for(var i=0;i < ca.length;i++) {
        var c = ca[i];
        while (c.charAt(0)==' ') c = c.substring(1,c.length);
        if (c.indexOf(nameEQ) == 0) return c.substring(nameEQ.length,c.length);
    }
    return null;
}
function eraseCookie(name) {   
    document.cookie = name+'=; Max-Age=-99999999;';  
}

Answer 3

would this work?

function eraseCookie(name) {
    document.cookie = name + '=; Max-Age=0'
}

I know Max-Age causes the cookie to be a session cookie in IE when creating the cookie. Not sure how it works when deleting cookies.

Answer 4

Here is an implementation of a delete cookie function with unicode support from Mozilla:

function removeItem(sKey, sPath, sDomain) {
    document.cookie = encodeURIComponent(sKey) + 
                  "=; expires=Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT" + 
                  (sDomain ? "; domain=" + sDomain : "") + 
                  (sPath ? "; path=" + sPath : "");
}

removeItem("cookieName");

If you use AngularJs, try $cookies.remove (underneath it uses a similar approach):

$cookies.remove('cookieName');

Answer 5

You can do this by setting the date of expiry to yesterday.

Setting it to "-1" doesn't work. That marks a cookie as a Sessioncookie.

Answer 6

Some of the other solutions might not work if you created the cookie manually.

Here's a quick way to delete a cookie:

document.cookie = 'COOKIE_NAME=; Max-Age=0; path=/; domain=' + location.host;

Answer 7

To delete a cookie I set it again with an empty value and expiring in 1 second. In details, I always use one of the following flavours (I tend to prefer the second one):

1.

    function setCookie(key, value, expireDays, expireHours, expireMinutes, expireSeconds) {
        var expireDate = new Date();
        if (expireDays) {
            expireDate.setDate(expireDate.getDate() + expireDays);
        }
        if (expireHours) {
            expireDate.setHours(expireDate.getHours() + expireHours);
        }
        if (expireMinutes) {
            expireDate.setMinutes(expireDate.getMinutes() + expireMinutes);
        }
        if (expireSeconds) {
            expireDate.setSeconds(expireDate.getSeconds() + expireSeconds);
        }
        document.cookie = key +"="+ escape(value) +
            ";domain="+ window.location.hostname +
            ";path=/"+
            ";expires="+expireDate.toUTCString();
    }

    function deleteCookie(name) {
        setCookie(name, "", null , null , null, 1);
    }

Usage:

setCookie("reminder", "buyCoffee", null, null, 20);
deleteCookie("reminder");

2

    function setCookie(params) {
        var name            = params.name,
            value           = params.value,
            expireDays      = params.days,
            expireHours     = params.hours,
            expireMinutes   = params.minutes,
            expireSeconds   = params.seconds;

        var expireDate = new Date();
        if (expireDays) {
            expireDate.setDate(expireDate.getDate() + expireDays);
        }
        if (expireHours) {
            expireDate.setHours(expireDate.getHours() + expireHours);
        }
        if (expireMinutes) {
            expireDate.setMinutes(expireDate.getMinutes() + expireMinutes);
        }
        if (expireSeconds) {
            expireDate.setSeconds(expireDate.getSeconds() + expireSeconds);
        }

        document.cookie = name +"="+ escape(value) +
            ";domain="+ window.location.hostname +
            ";path=/"+
            ";expires="+expireDate.toUTCString();
    }

    function deleteCookie(name) {
        setCookie({name: name, value: "", seconds: 1});
    }

Usage:

setCookie({name: "reminder", value: "buyCoffee", minutes: 20});
deleteCookie("reminder");

Answer 8

I had trouble deleting a cookie made via JavaScript and after I added the host it worked (scroll the code below to the right to see the location.host). After clearing the cookies on a domain try the following to see the results:

if (document.cookie.length==0)
{
 document.cookie = 'name=example; expires='+new Date((new Date()).valueOf()+1000*60*60*24*15)+'; path=/; domain='+location.host;

 if (document.cookie.length==0) {alert('Cookies disabled');}
 else
 {
  document.cookie = 'name=example; expires=Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT; path=/; domain='+location.host;

  if (document.cookie.length==0) {alert('Created AND deleted cookie successfully.');}
  else {alert('document.cookies.length = '+document.cookies.length);}
 }
}