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How to create a shortcut to delete the browsing history in Internet Explorer 11

In our previous post we covered how you can clear the browsing history of Internet Explorer 11. Here is a tip which will allow you to create special shortcuts to delete the browsing history completely or partially. You can pin these shortcuts to the Start screen or the Start Menu or to the Taskbar.

  1. To create a new shortcut, right click on the Desktop and choose New -> Shortcut.
  2. Use the following command as a shortcut target:
    RunDll32.exe InetCpl.cpl,ClearMyTracksByProcess 255

    This command will remove all your browsing history from Internet Explorer 11 when it is run.

  3. Give it some name and assign some icon to your shortcut, and you are done. If you open the shortcut you just created, you will see the following window:
    progress

You can use this shortcut to clear the browsing history with one click at any moment you want, or you can even put it into the Task Scheduler to delete it upon a schedule or with some event.

This trick works in Windows 8.1, Windows 8 and Windows 7 with Internet Explorer 11, 10 and 9 installed.

The last parameter of the command (the numeric one) defines what exactly to clear. You can change its value to remove only specific data from your browsing history. Here is the list of possible values:

  • Delete all including the plugin and addon history:
    RunDll32.exe InetCpl.cpl,ClearMyTracksByProcess 4351
  • Delete only saved passwords:
    RunDll32.exe InetCpl.cpl,ClearMyTracksByProcess 32
  • Delete only web forms data:
    RunDll32.exe InetCpl.cpl,ClearMyTracksByProcess 16
  • Delete only browsing history:
    RunDll32.exe InetCpl.cpl,ClearMyTracksByProcess 1
  • Delete only download history
    RunDll32.exe InetCpl.cpl,ClearMyTracksByProcess 16384
  • Delete only stored cookies:
    RunDll32.exe InetCpl.cpl,ClearMyTracksByProcess 2
  • Delete saved cache:
    RunDll32.exe InetCpl.cpl,ClearMyTracksByProcess 8

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Author: Sergey Tkachenko

Sergey Tkachenko is a software developer who started Winaero back in 2011. On this blog, Sergey is writing about everything connected to Microsoft, Windows and popular software. Follow him on Telegram, Twitter, and YouTube.

5 thoughts on “How to create a shortcut to delete the browsing history in Internet Explorer 11”

  1. Great information,
    One question from an absolute novice; is it possible to combine any of the values that you listed? For example, if you wanted to delete browsing history and saved cache?

    Would you be able to have two values at the end of the statement? Perhaps something like:

    RunDll32.exe InetCpl.cpl,ClearMyTracksByProcess 1; 8

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