Check that at least one data type toggle is switched on in the Clean tab — if all toggles are off, there is nothing to clear and the button completes silently.
Also confirm your time range. If you chose 1 hour and have no data from the last hour, the operation still succeeds but nothing is removed.
The whitelist matches against the cookie's domain field. Make sure you entered the root domain without a leading dot or subdomain:
- ✓
github.com - ✗
www.github.com - ✗
.github.com
ClearBrowse matches any cookie whose domain ends with the whitelisted value, so github.com also protects cookies on subdomain.github.com.
Make sure Auto-clean is set to On in the Settings tab — the pill toggle must show green.
Auto-clean fires when the last Chrome window is closed. If you close one window but Chrome is still running (other windows open, or running in the background), it won't trigger until all windows are gone.
Yes, intentionally. Clearing saved passwords is irreversible, so ClearBrowse requires explicit confirmation before proceeding. The same confirmation is shown for the Private Session Wipe preset, which also clears passwords.
- Quick Clean — cache only, last 24 hours. Safe to run any time, preserves all logins and history.
- Deep Clean — cache, history, cookies, form data, and downloads, all time. Your cookie whitelist is still respected.
- Private Session Wipe — everything including passwords and local storage, all time. Requires confirmation.
Only if you don't use the whitelist. Add domains you want to stay logged in to under Settings → Cookie Whitelist and ClearBrowse will skip those cookies entirely.
The Quick Clean preset never touches cookies at all.
No. Clearing Downloads removes the history records shown in Chrome's downloads list (chrome://downloads). It does not touch the actual files on your disk.
No. ClearBrowse never reads, transmits, or stores your browsing data. All clearing is handled locally via Chrome's built-in browsingData API.
The only things saved are your settings (last cleaned time, whitelist entries, auto-clean toggle) in chrome.storage.local on your own device.
Remove and re-add the extension:
- Go to
chrome://extensions - Click Remove on ClearBrowse
- Reload it as unpacked or reinstall from the Chrome Web Store
This clears all stored settings including your whitelist and returns everything to defaults.