# About cookies

Some Web sites store information in a small text file, called a "cookie," on your hard disk. Cookies typically contain information about you and your preferences for the Web site. For example, if you look at a flight schedule on an airline’s Web site, the site might create a cookie that records the pages you visited on the site. That way, the site can customize the pages you see the next time you visit.

A cookie can store only the information you provide, or the choices you make, while visiting a Web site. For example, a site cannot determine your e-mail address unless you send it to the site, such as by submitting it in a Web form. Allowing a Web site to create a cookie does not give the site access to the rest of your computer, and only the site that created the cookie can read it.

By default, Microsoft Internet Explorer saves the cookies it receives. You can change your cookie settings so that when a site sends you a cookie, you can choose to accept or decline the cookie. Or, you can have Internet Explorer accept no cookies.

Related topics

Enabling or disabling cookies

Changing a cookie’s setting

Deleting a cookie

Enable or disable cookies

1. On the Explorer menu, click Preferences.
2. Under Receiving Files, click Cookies.
3. On the When receiving cookies pop-up menu, click the option you want.

Related topics

About cookies

Changing a cookie’s setting

Deleting a cookie

Change a cookie’s setting

1. On the Explorer menu, click Preferences.
2. Under Receiving Files, click Cookies.
3. Click the cookie whose setting you want to change, and then click Accept Cookies/Decline Cookies.

   If the Accept Cookies/Decline Cookies button is unavailable, click Ask for each site on the When receiving cookies pop-up menu.

| To sort the list of cookies, click a column heading.
| To get more information about a cookie, click the cookie, and then click View.

Related topics

Enabling or disabling cookies

Deleting a cookie

Delete a cookie

1. On the Explorer menu, click Preferences.
2. Under Receiving Files, click Cookies.
3. Click the cookie you want to delete, and then click Delete.

Related topics

Enabling or disabling cookies

Changing a cookie’s setting