What Is ~/Library/HTTPStorages on Mac?
Your user folderUpdated
- Full path
~/Library/HTTPStorages
- Scope
- Your user folderInside your home folder — one copy per user account.
- Freshist & this folder
- Freshist checks this folder when uninstalling an app. When you uninstall an app, Freshist looks here for items that belong to it. Matches on the app's bundle ID can be pre-selected; name-only guesses are labeled “not sure” and never pre-selected. Removed items go to the Trash, so you can undo.
From Freshist's own cleaning rules — the same catalog the app uses.
What lives here
When a Mac app talks to the web through Apple's networking APIs (URLSession and the CFNetwork layer beneath it), the system needs somewhere to keep that app's cookies and related state between launches. In recent macOS versions that place is ~/Library/HTTPStorages, with one entry per app or helper, named by bundle ID.
A look at a real Mac shows two kinds of entries:
| Entry | Contents |
|---|---|
com.example.App/ folder | httpstorages.sqlite plus its -wal and -shm journal files |
com.example.App.binarycookies file | The app's cookie jar, in Apple's binary cookie format |
Apple doesn't publish a description of the folder itself; the layout above is what it contains in practice. The .binarycookies files are the same format Apple uses for ~/Library/Cookies, which older macOS versions used for many of the same apps.
Why it matters
Cookies here may hold an app's active sign-in session for its online service. That's why a helper or app can stay signed in without asking for your password each time. It also means these files are sensitive: treat them like browser cookies.
Why leftovers accumulate
Every helper process that makes a web request gets its own entry: crash reporters, updaters, license checkers, background agents. Uninstalling the app doesn't remove them. In one real-world example the folder had 166 entries totalling 130 MB, and the largest single entry was about 6 MB. So leftovers here are a matter of tidiness more than space.
Inspecting it read-only
du -sh ~/Library/HTTPStorages
du -sh ~/Library/HTTPStorages/* 2>/dev/null | sort -h | tail -10
ls ~/Library/HTTPStorages | grep -i appname
Replace appname with part of the app or developer name to find its entries.
Removing entries
For an app you still use, prefer its own Sign Out or Reset option; that clears server-side sessions too. For leftovers from removed apps:
- Quit the app and any of its helpers, if they're still running.
- In Finder, choose Go → Go to Folder… and enter
~/Library/HTTPStorages. - Move both the bundle-ID folder and the matching
.binarycookiesfile to the Trash.
If an app you use gets its entry deleted, expect to sign in again; nothing else is lost, because documents and settings live elsewhere.
What to leave alone
Skip com.apple.* entries. They belong to App Store, account and media services, and removing them mostly causes extra sign-in prompts. Don't confuse this folder with ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.nsurlsessiond, which holds background download data rather than cookies. Apps with their own web engines, like Chrome-based apps, keep their main browsing data in Application Support instead.
Sources
- URLSession, Apple Developer Documentation
- HTTPCookieStorage, Apple Developer Documentation
- Bug 210120, WebKit network process sandbox and HTTPStorages
Frequently asked questions
Are Safari's cookies in HTTPStorages?
No. Safari keeps its cookies inside its own container. HTTPStorages holds network data for other apps and system services that use Apple's networking APIs.
Why are there folders for apps I've never opened?
Background helpers, updaters and installers create entries too. A single app suite can add a dozen folders for its daemons and update agents.
Does HTTPStorages grow very large?
Rarely. Most entries are a few hundred kilobytes, and on a busy Mac the whole folder is often in the low hundreds of megabytes at most.