How to See Full Cookie Details in Safari 6

Starting with Safari 5.1, Apple changed the amount of cookie details, for the worse, that we can see in the Safari Preferences. But we could still get to them with Developer tools. In Safari 6, the raw cookie detail is stored in binary format, but we can still see the data in “classic” mode with the Developer Tools' Web Inspector. Here's how to do it.

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For reference, see “See Full Cookie Details in Safari 5.1.” That article explained how to display the Developer menu in Safari 5.1 and view the cookies in the classic mode with full details. Like this:

“Classic” view

In Safari 6, Apple stores the cookies in ~/Library/Cookies/Cookies.binarycookies for speed but also Cookies.plist. These files are hard to read and manage. However, the full “classic” cookie detail is still available in human-readable form as follows.

  1. Go to Safari Preferences -> Advanced.
  2. At the bottom, check “Show Develop menu in menu bar.”
  3. Now, in Safari’s Develop menu, select “Show Web Inspector.”

A new pane will open at the bottom of your Safari page. In Safari 6, instead of colorful Tool bar icons, as described in the original article, you'll see a thin grey bar with some small, grey icons.

Select the “storage” icon.

Number 4 from the left, what looks like a stack of disks, is “Storage.” Hold your cursor over it to verify.

The cookies are displayed on a site-by-site basis . If you change to another tab and website, the cookies for that site will be displayed.

To delete a cookie, you can highlight it and press the Delete key, or you can right-click the mouse and select delete. To close the pane, click the “x” on the far left side.

As always, if you want to see the abbreviated view of your cookies, go to Safari Preferences -> Privacy -> Details.

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Cookie image via Shutterstock.

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