How to Run a Short Command Line to Delete Web Browsing History
By Gil David
To speed your daily browsing the web browser Internet Explorer saves your browsing information and history in local files on your hard disk. The files include recent websites you visited, data you entered in web forms, passwords you entered in web pages and temporary Internet files. You can clear the browsing history when you want to free space from your hard disk or when you want to keep your browsing activity private. Although Internet Explorer provides such option through its menu bar, you may prefer to use a command line for this task (when writing a script that runs when Windows starts up, for example).
Instructions
Open the "Command Prompt," the Windows application that enables running Windows commands and software applications, by clicking the Windows "Start" button, clicking "Programs," clicking "Accessories" and then clicking "Command Prompt."
Type "RunDll32.exe InetCpl.cpl,ClearMyTracksByProcess 1" in the command prompt to delete your browsing history from Internet Explorer.
Type "RunDll32.exe InetCpl.cpl,ClearMyTracksByProcess 8" in the command prompt to delete temporary Internet files from Internet Explorer.
Type "RunDll32.exe InetCpl.cpl,ClearMyTracksByProcess 2" in the command prompt to delete cookies from Internet Explorer.
Type "RunDll32.exe InetCpl.cpl,ClearMyTracksByProcess 32" in the command prompt to delete your saved passwords from Internet Explorer.
Type "RunDll32.exe InetCpl.cpl,ClearMyTracksByProcess 16" in the command prompt to delete your web form information from Internet Explorer.
Type "RunDll32.exe InetCpl.cpl,ClearMyTracksByProcess 255" in the command prompt to delete all of the above from Internet Explorer.
Tips
- These commands work in Internet Explorer 7 and 8 on Windows XP, Vista and 7.
Writer Bio
Gil David has published mathematical and technical articles, technological patents and manuals since 2006. His articles have appeared in journals such as "Applied and Computational Harmonic Analysis." He holds a Master of Science in computer science from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and a Ph.D. in computer science from Tel-Aviv University in Israel.