Get a listing of all Internet cookies with CookieSpy

Nearly every site on the Internet makes use of cookies. Some use those little files to store session information in  and others for customizations the user has made on the site. Besides first party cookies, which more often than not serve a purpose directly linked to the user visiting the site, there are third party cookies which are mostly used for tracking purposes. And those have been in the news lately with browser manufacturers implementing do not track features and all that kind of stuff.

CookieSpy is a free program for the Windows operating system that displays the cookies of each browser that it detects on the system. Supported by the program are installed and portable versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari, and various Firefox and Chrome variants.

When you start the program after installation you will notice that it has already picked up all installed browsers automatically that it supports. Each browser is displayed in its own line in the interface.

For Firefox, it needs to be mentioned that it is only picking up cookies saved in the default profile, and not in other profiles that may be used on the system. Portable browser versions can be added with a click on the settings button in the upper right corner of the screen, and the selection ofBrowsers > Add portable browser from the context menu. You can alternatively click on the plus icon in the main window to do the same thing.

Cookies are displayed with the domain they originated on, their path, name, value, expiration date and a handful of other parameters. A click on a column sorts the cookies automatically based on the selected parameter.

A right-click lets you copy the cookie’s contents, or delete the selection right away. You can furthermore enable a search to find specific cookies, or refresh the listing to pick up newer cookies that have been created since the start of the program.

Closing Words

A listing of all cookies is a good start for a program, but there are things that I’d like to see implemented to increase the usefulness of it. I’d first love to see an option to display all cookies of all browsers in a single tab. I’d furthermore like to be able to search all browser cookies automatically, copy cookies from one browser to the other, and create detailed reports that I can save as HTML or csv documents.

For now, CookieSpy may have its used for developers who design and create web projects, and users who are curious about the cookies stored on their systems. It can be used to quickly check if the cleanup of cookies on the system was successful.

Please note that CookieSpy requires the Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0.