View and delete your browsing history in Internet Explorer
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Your browsing history is the info that Internet Explorer stores on a PC as you surf the web. To help improve your experience, this includes info you've entered into forms, passwords, and sites you've visited. However, if you're using a shared or public PC, you may not want Internet Explorer to save your history.

View your browsing history and delete specific sites

By viewing your browsing history, you can choose to delete specific sites, or return to a webpage that you've already visited.

In Internet Explorer, select the Favorites  button.
Select the History tab, and choose how you want to view your history by selecting a filter from the menu. To delete specific sites, right-select a site from any of these lists and then select Delete. Or, return to a page by selecting any site in the list.
Delete your browsing history

Regularly deleting your browsing history helps protect your privacy, especially if you're using a shared or public PC.

Show all
To delete browsing history in Internet Explorer 11 and Internet Explorer 10
To delete browsing history in Internet Explorer 9
To delete browsing history in Internet Explorer 8

What gets deleted when you delete your browsing history

Types of info	What gets deleted	Internet Explorer version
Browsing history

The list of sites you've visited.

All

Cached images temporary Internet files

Copies of pages, images, and other media content stored on your PC. The browser uses these copies to load content faster the next time you visit those sites.

All

Cookies

Info that sites store on your PC to remember your preferences, such as sing-in or your location.

All

Download history

The list of files you've downloaded form the web. This only deletes the lest, not the actual files you've downloaded.

Only Internet Explorer 11 and Internet Explorer 10

Form data

Info that you've entered into forms, such as your email or a shipping address.

All

Passwords

Passwords that you've saved for sites.

All

Tracking Protection, ActiveX Filtering, and Do Not Track data

Websites you've excluded from ActiveX Filtering, and data that the browser uses to detect tracking activity.

All

Favorites

The list of sites that you've saved as favorites. Don't delete favorites if you only want to remove individual sites—this will delete all of your saved sites.

All

InPrivate filtering data

Saved data used by InPrivate Filtering to detect where sites might be automatically sharing details about your visit.

Only for Internet Explorer 9 and Internet Explorer 8

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Article ID: 17438 - Last Review: Sep 1, 2016 - Revision: 32

Applies to
Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, Internet Explorer

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