browsingData.remove()

Removes the specified browsing data.

The browsing data to be removed is specified in the dataTypes option, which is a browsingData.DataTypeSet object.

You can use the removalOptions option, which is a browsingData.RemovalOptions object, to control how far back in time to remove data and whether to remove data only from normal web pages or to remove data from hosted apps and extensions as well.

This is an asynchronous function that returns a Promise.

Syntax

var removing = browser.browsingData.remove(
  removalOptions,            // RemovalOptions object
  dataTypes                  // DataTypeSet object
)

Parameters

removalOptions
object. A browsingData.RemovalOptions object, which may be used to control how far back in time to remove data, and whether to remove data from hosted web apps and extensions, or just normal web pages.
dataTypes
object. A browsingData.DataTypeSet object, describing the types of data to remove (e.g. history, downloads, ...).

Return value

A Promise that will be fulfilled with no arguments when the removal has finished. If any error occurs, the promise will be rejected with an error message.

Browser compatibility

ChromeEdgeFirefoxFirefox for AndroidOpera
Basic supportYesNo53 1 2NoYes
1. Firefox does not support removal of: 'fileSystems', 'indexedDB', 'localStorage', or 'serverBoundCertificates'.
2. 'removalOptions' does not support 'protectedWeb' or 'extension' as values of 'originTypes'.

Examples

Remove download history and browsing history for the last week:

function onRemoved() {
  console.log("removed");
}
function onError(error) {
  console.error(error);
}
function weekInMilliseconds() {
  return 1000 * 60 * 60 * 24 * 7;
}
var oneWeekAgo = (new Date()).getTime() - weekInMilliseconds();
browser.browsingData.remove(
  {since: oneWeekAgo},
  {downloads: true, history: true}).
then(onRemoved, onError);

Remove all download and browsing history:

function onRemoved() {
  console.log("removed");
}
function onError(error) {
  console.error(error);
}
browser.browsingData.remove({},
  {downloads: true, history: true}).
then(onRemoved, onError);

Example extensions

Acknowledgements

This API is based on Chromium's chrome.browsingData API.

Microsoft Edge compatibility data is supplied by Microsoft Corporation and is included here under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

Document Tags and Contributors

 Contributors to this page: andrewtruongmoz, wbamberg
 Last updated by: andrewtruongmoz,