How do I set/unset a cookie with jQuery?

Question

How do I set and unset a cookie using jQuery, for example create a cookie named test and set the value to 1?

Palindrome

Answer 1

Update April 2019

jQuery isn't needed for cookie reading/manipulation, so don't use the original answer below.

Go to https://github.com/js-cookie/js-cookie instead, and use the library there that doesn't depend on jQuery.

Basic examples:

// Set a cookie
Cookies.set('name', 'value');

// Read the cookie
Cookies.get('name') => // => 'value'

See the docs on github for details.

---

Before April 2019 (old)

See the plugin:

https://github.com/carhartl/jquery-cookie

You can then do:

$.cookie("test", 1);

To delete:

$.removeCookie("test");

Additionally, to set a timeout of a certain number of days (10 here) on the cookie:

$.cookie("test", 1, { expires : 10 });

If the expires option is omitted, then the cookie becomes a session cookie and is deleted when the browser exits.

To cover all the options:

$.cookie("test", 1, {
   expires : 10,           // Expires in 10 days

   path    : '/',          // The value of the path attribute of the cookie
                           // (Default: path of page that created the cookie).

   domain  : 'jquery.com', // The value of the domain attribute of the cookie
                           // (Default: domain of page that created the cookie).

   secure  : true          // If set to true the secure attribute of the cookie
                           // will be set and the cookie transmission will
                           // require a secure protocol (defaults to false).
});

To read back the value of the cookie:

var cookieValue = $.cookie("test");

UPDATE (April 2015):

As stated in the comments below, the team that worked on the original plugin has removed the jQuery dependency in a new project (https://github.com/js-cookie/js-cookie) which has the same functionality and general syntax as the jQuery version. Apparently the original plugin isn't going anywhere though.

Astounding

from the changelog: "$.removeCookie('foo') for deleting a cookie, using $.cookie('foo', null) is now deprecated" – Wits

Plugin works great, expect its only storing a session cookie on the latest version of Opera as of 5-31-13 (v12.15). Persistent cookies works in IE, Chrome, FF, and Safari, but just not Opera. – Lastly

To test if a cookie is set: var mytest = $.cookie('nameofcookie'); <br> if (typeof mytest === "undefined") { alert("cookie mytest not set") } – Ladawnladd

@AndreiCristianProdan - Doesn't it? Why not? I can't imagine the behaviour would be any different. – Astounding

@Kazar I spent 6 hours, no breaks. I finally realized the problem this morning. I'm using this with phonegap, on the site it works with no problems, but on the device, when you try to retrieve the cookie which has a JSON, it's already an object, so if you try to JSON.parse it, it will give a JSON parse error. Solved it with an "if typeof x == 'string'" do the JSON.parse, else, just use the object. 6 goddamn hours looking for the error in all the wrong places – Sync

when removing the cookie, make sure to also set the path to the same path as you set the cookie originally: $.removeCookie('nameofcookie', { path: '/' }); – Scour

I set cookie using. document.cookie but it is not working. #18429734 is this plugin help?. the cookie will expire in minutes. – Swound

When including a cross-site javascript (from a sub-domain), does the path and domain default to the page, or the script's site? – Mercaptopurine

If you can't get or set a cross-domain cookie, then what's the domain property you are passing for, subdomains? – Juliettajuliette

It's 2015 and we are still receiving more than 2k unique hits per week in jquery-cookie repository just from this answer. A couple of things we can learn from that: 1. cookies are not going to die soon and 2. People still google for a "jquery plugin to save the world". jQuery is NOT necessary for handling cookies, jquery-cookie is being renamed to js-cookie (github.com/js-cookie/js-cookie) and jquery dependency was made optional in version 1.5.0. There will be a version 2.0.0 with a lot of interesting stuff, it's worth take a look and contribute, thx! – Wolbrom

@FagnerBrack Are you leaving the original project up so that people can still find it? I've added a note at the end of the answer saying that the project is being moved, but would also like to be able to say that people don't need to worry about it going away. – Astounding

@Kazar We are not planning to physically move it, there is a considerable amount of overall traffic to that URL from several sources and Klaus is the historic owner of the "jquery-cookie" namespace. There's no need to worry for that URL being gone anytime soon. But still, I would encourage everyone to start watching the new repository for updates. – Wolbrom

@AlistairEvans var cookieValue = $.cookie("test", { path: '/foo' }); does not work. It sets a root path cookie with a JSON object { path: '/foo' } and returns the cookie-formatted string "test=%5Bobject%20Object%5D". Please remove this incorrect code. Unfortunately jQuery-Cookie doesn't have a way to retrieve cookies in a different path, and I don't see any update in JS-Cookie either. – Dialectic

Cookies.get('name') => is the => supposed to be there? – Lemmy

Answer 2

There is no need to use jQuery particularly to manipulate cookies.

From QuirksMode (including escaping characters)

function createCookie(name, value, days) {
    var expires;

    if (days) {
        var date = new Date();
        date.setTime(date.getTime() + (days * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000));
        expires = "; expires=" + date.toGMTString();
    } else {
        expires = "";
    }
    document.cookie = encodeURIComponent(name) + "=" + encodeURIComponent(value) + expires + "; path=/";
}

function readCookie(name) {
    var nameEQ = encodeURIComponent(name) + "=";
    var ca = document.cookie.split(';');
    for (var i = 0; i < ca.length; i++) {
        var c = ca[i];
        while (c.charAt(0) === ' ')
            c = c.substring(1, c.length);
        if (c.indexOf(nameEQ) === 0)
            return decodeURIComponent(c.substring(nameEQ.length, c.length));
    }
    return null;
}

function eraseCookie(name) {
    createCookie(name, "", -1);
}

Take a look at

• How do I remove an existing class name and add a new one with jQuery and cookies?

Shrive

Hi Russ, the good thing about jquery cookie is that it escapes the data – Horlacher

@lordspace - Just wrap the value in window.escape/unescape to write/retrieve the cookie value, respectively :) – Shrive

Better cookie code can be found here: developer.mozilla.org/en/DOM/document.cookie – Leoraleos

@SDC: Would that code from mozilla work in all major browsers? – Dortch

@Dortch - yes it would. Nothing browser specific there. – Leoraleos

JSHint complains that expires was already defined and === was not used to compare with 0 and ' '. – Morphosis

the jQuery cookie plugin is much simpler – Weywadt

instead of escape or unescape you can use encodeURI or decodeURI – Zerline

This solution is not going to work, encodeURIComponent can erroneously encode characters that are allowed in cookie-value or cookie-name according to the RFC 6265: github.com/js-cookie/js-cookie/pull/20#issuecomment-94453407. That can cause trouble for removing a cookie using third party solutions that expect some characters not to be encoded in the cookie-name. – Wolbrom

Answer 3

<script type="text/javascript">
    function setCookie(key, value, expiry) {
        var expires = new Date();
        expires.setTime(expires.getTime() + (expiry * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000));
        document.cookie = key + '=' + value + ';expires=' + expires.toUTCString();
    }

    function getCookie(key) {
        var keyValue = document.cookie.match('(^|;) ?' + key + '=([^;]*)(;|$)');
        return keyValue ? keyValue[2] : null;
    }

    function eraseCookie(key) {
        var keyValue = getCookie(key);
        setCookie(key, keyValue, '-1');
    }

</script>

You can set the cookies as like

setCookie('test','1','1'); //(key,value,expiry in days)

You can get the cookies as like

getCookie('test');

And finally you can erase the cookies like this one

eraseCookie('test');

Hope it will helps to someone :)

EDIT:

If you want to set the cookie to all the path/page/directory then set path attribute to the cookie

function setCookie(key, value, expiry) {
        var expires = new Date();
        expires.setTime(expires.getTime() + (expiry * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000));
        document.cookie = key + '=' + value + ';path=/' + ';expires=' + expires.toUTCString();
}

Thanks, vicky

Nugget

60 * 1000 = 60 second 60* (60 * 1000) = 60 mins which is 1 hour 24* (60* (60 * 1000)) = 1 day which 24 hours Hope it helps. – Nugget

1 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000 customize 1 for 1 day or u can do 365 – Nugget

Good functions... But why are they inside of a document.ready tag? – Pankey

This is not going to work in Safari or IE for any characters outside the ASCII range, such as é, 北, etc. Also, this is not going to work for some special characters that are not allowed in the cookie-name or cookie-value. I recommend the following reference: tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6265 – Wolbrom

Best of the best answer – Misinterpret

Answer 4

You can use a plugin available here..

https://plugins.jquery.com/cookie/

and then to write a cookie do $.cookie("test", 1);

to access the set cookie do $.cookie("test");

Cristophercristy

there's a newer version of that plugin – Sync

Answer 5

Here is my global module I use -

var Cookie = {   

   Create: function (name, value, days) {

       var expires = "";

        if (days) {
           var date = new Date();
           date.setTime(date.getTime() + (days * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000));
           expires = "; expires=" + date.toGMTString();
       }

       document.cookie = name + "=" + value + expires + "; path=/";
   },

   Read: function (name) {

        var nameEQ = name + "=";
        var ca = document.cookie.split(";");

        for (var i = 0; i < ca.length; i++) {
            var c = ca[i];
            while (c.charAt(0) == " ") c = c.substring(1, c.length);
            if (c.indexOf(nameEQ) == 0) return c.substring(nameEQ.length, c.length);
        }

        return null;
    },

    Erase: function (name) {

        Cookie.create(name, "", -1);
    }

};

Menides

Answer 6

Make sure not to do something like this:

var a = $.cookie("cart").split(",");

Then, if the cookie doesn't exist, the debugger will return some unhelpful message like ".cookie not a function".

Always declare first, then do the split after checking for null. Like this:

var a = $.cookie("cart");
if (a != null) {
    var aa = a.split(",");

Reinold

The sample code is not complete. Is it only a single } that is missing or are there several lines of code missing? – Android

It's just a singe } missing, but obviously you will need to add more lines of code to continue what you want to do with the split. – Reinold

Answer 7

Here is how you set the cookie with JavaScript:

below code has been taken from https://www.w3schools.com/js/js_cookies.asp

function setCookie(cname, cvalue, exdays) {
    var d = new Date();
    d.setTime(d.getTime() + (exdays*24*60*60*1000));
    var expires = "expires="+ d.toUTCString();
    document.cookie = cname + "=" + cvalue + ";" + expires + ";path=/";
}

now you can get the cookie with below function:

function getCookie(cname) {
    var name = cname + "=";
    var decodedCookie = decodeURIComponent(document.cookie);
    var ca = decodedCookie.split(';');
    for(var i = 0; i <ca.length; i++) {
        var c = ca[i];
        while (c.charAt(0) == ' ') {
            c = c.substring(1);
        }
        if (c.indexOf(name) == 0) {
            return c.substring(name.length, c.length);
        }
    }
    return "";
}

And finally this is how you check the cookie:

function checkCookie() {
    var username = getCookie("username");
    if (username != "") {
        alert("Welcome again " + username);
    } else {
        username = prompt("Please enter your name:", "");
        if (username != "" && username != null) {
            setCookie("username", username, 365);
        }
    }
}

If you want to delete the cookie just set the expires parameter to a passed date:

document.cookie = "username=; expires=Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 UTC; path=/;";

Morphogenesis

Answer 8

A simple example of set cookie in your browser:

<!doctype html>
<html>
    <head>
        <meta charset="utf-8">
        <title>jquery.cookie Test Suite</title>

        <script src="jquery-1.9.0.min.js"></script>
        <script src="jquery.cookie.js"></script>
        <script src="JSON-js-master/json.js"></script>
        <script src="JSON-js-master/json_parse.js"></script>
        <script>
            $(function() {

               if ($.cookie('cookieStore')) {
                    var data=JSON.parse($.cookie("cookieStore"));
                    $('#name').text(data[0]);
                    $('#address').text(data[1]);
              }

              $('#submit').on('click', function(){

                    var storeData = new Array();
                    storeData[0] = $('#inputName').val();
                    storeData[1] = $('#inputAddress').val();

                    $.cookie("cookieStore", JSON.stringify(storeData));
                    var data=JSON.parse($.cookie("cookieStore"));
                    $('#name').text(data[0]);
                    $('#address').text(data[1]);
              });
            });

       </script>
    </head>
    <body>
            <label for="inputName">Name</label>
            <br /> 
            <input type="text" id="inputName">
            <br />      
            <br /> 
            <label for="inputAddress">Address</label>
            <br /> 
            <input type="text" id="inputAddress">
            <br />      
            <br />   
            <input type="submit" id="submit" value="Submit" />
            <hr>    
            <p id="name"></p>
            <br />      
            <p id="address"></p>
            <br />
            <hr>  
     </body>
</html>

Simple just copy/paste and use this code for set your cookie.

Brachial

Just a note, the browser by default cache the resources according to their filenames. In this example, jquery-1.9.0.min.js will be reloaded for everybody when the filename is updated to jquery-1.9.1.min.js, otherwise the browser will NOT make a request to the server at all to check for updated content. If you update the code inside jquery.cookie.js without changing it's filename, then it may NOT be reloaded in browsers that already cached the jquery.cookie.js resource. – Wolbrom

If you are writing a website and copying/pasting this, be aware that this is not going to work if you update jquery.cookie.js version without changing it's filename (unless your server deal with caching using E-Tags). – Wolbrom

if ($.cookie('cookieStore')) { var data=JSON.parse($.cookie("cookieStore")); // when load page in different page not found $('#name').text(data[0]); $('#address').text(data[1]); } – Gamble

Answer 9

You can use the library on Mozilla website here

You'll be able to set and get cookies like this

docCookies.setItem(name, value);
docCookies.getItem(name);

Burletta

Answer 10

I think Fresher gave us nice way, but there is a mistake:

    <script type="text/javascript">
        function setCookie(key, value) {
            var expires = new Date();
            expires.setTime(expires.getTime() + (value * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000));
            document.cookie = key + '=' + value + ';expires=' + expires.toUTCString();
        }

        function getCookie(key) {
            var keyValue = document.cookie.match('(^|;) ?' + key + '=([^;]*)(;|$)');
            return keyValue ? keyValue[2] : null;
        }
   </script>

You should add "value" near getTime(); otherwise the cookie will expire immediately :)

Largo

"value" could be a string. In the question he's using 1 as an example. Value should be what the key is equal to, not the length in days before the cookie expires. If value were passed in as "foo" your version would crash. – Nubbly

Answer 11

How to use it?

//To set a cookie
$.cookie('the_cookie', 'the_value');

//Create expiring cookie, 7 days from then:
$.cookie('the_cookie', 'the_value', { expires: 7 });

//Create expiring cookie, valid across entire page:
$.cookie('the_cookie', 'the_value', { expires: 7, path: '/' });

//Read cookie
$.cookie('the_cookie'); // => 'the_value'
$.cookie('not_existing'); // => null

//Delete cookie by passing null as value:
$.cookie('the_cookie', null);

// Creating cookie with all availabl options
$.cookie('myCookie2', 'myValue2', { expires: 7, path: '/', domain: 'example.com', 
         secure: true, raw: true });

Available Options:

expires: Define lifetime of the cookie. Value can be a Number (which will be interpreted as days from time of creation) or a Date object. If omitted, the cookie is a session cookie.

path: Define the path where cookie is valid. By default the path of the cookie is the path of the page where the cookie was created (standard browser behavior). If you want to make it available for instance across the entire page use path: '/'.

domain: Domain of page where the cookie was created.

secure: Default: false. If true, the cookie transmission requires a secure protocol (https).

raw: By default the cookie is encoded/decoded when creating/reading, using encodeURIComponent/ decodeURIComponent. Turn off by setting raw: true.

Dalpe

Answer 12

Reducing the number of operations compared to previous answers, I use the following.

function setCookie(name, value, expiry) {
    let d = new Date();
    d.setTime(d.getTime() + (expiry*86400000));
    document.cookie = name + "=" + value + ";" + "expires=" + d.toUTCString() + ";path=/";
}

function getCookie(name) {
    let cookie = document.cookie.match('(^|;) ?' + name + '=([^;]*)(;|$)');
    return cookie ? cookie[2] : null;
}

function eatCookie(name) {
    setCookie(name, "", -1);
}

Eczema

Answer 13

Background

Cookies were originally invented by Netscape to give 'memory' to web servers and browsers. The HTTP protocol, which arranges for the transfer of web pages to your browser and browser requests for pages to servers, is state-less, which means that once the server has sent a page to a browser requesting it, it doesn't remember a thing about it. So if you come to the same web page a second, third, hundredth or millionth time, the server once again considers it the very first time you ever came there.

This can be annoying in a number of ways. The server cannot remember if you identified yourself when you want to access protected pages, it cannot remember your user preferences, it cannot remember anything. As soon as personalization was invented, this became a major problem.

Cookies were invented to solve this problem. There are other ways to solve it, but cookies are easy to maintain and very versatile.

How cookies work

A cookie is nothing but a small text file that's stored in your browser. It contains some data:

• A name-value pair containing the actual data
• An expiry date after which it is no longer valid
• The domain and path of the server it should be sent to

Example

To set or unset cookies using Javascript, you can do the following:

// Cookies
function createCookie(name, value, days) {
    if (days) {
        var date = new Date();
        date.setTime(date.getTime() + (days * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000));
        var expires = "; expires=" + date.toGMTString();
    }
    else var expires = "";               

    document.cookie = name + "=" + value + expires + "; path=/";
}

function readCookie(name) {
    var nameEQ = name + "=";
    var ca = document.cookie.split(';');
    for (var i = 0; i < ca.length; i++) {
        var c = ca[i];
        while (c.charAt(0) == ' ') c = c.substring(1, c.length);
        if (c.indexOf(nameEQ) == 0) return c.substring(nameEQ.length, c.length);
    }
    return null;
}
function setCookie(name, days) {
    createCookie(name, name, days);
}
function unsetCookie(name) {
    createCookie(name, "", -1);
}

You can access like below,

setCookie("demo", 1); // to set new cookie

readCookie("demo"); // to retrive data from cookie

unsetCookie("demo"); // will unset that cookie

Scruple

Answer 14

I thought Vignesh Pichamani's answer was the simplest and cleanest. Just adding to his the ability to set the number of days before expiration:

EDIT: also added 'never expires' option if no day number is set

        function setCookie(key, value, days) {
            var expires = new Date();
            if (days) {
                expires.setTime(expires.getTime() + (days * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000));
                document.cookie = key + '=' + value + ';expires=' + expires.toUTCString();
            } else {
                document.cookie = key + '=' + value + ';expires=Fri, 30 Dec 9999 23:59:59 GMT;';
            }
        }

        function getCookie(key) {
            var keyValue = document.cookie.match('(^|;) ?' + key + '=([^;]*)(;|$)');
            return keyValue ? keyValue[2] : null;
        }

Set the cookie:

setCookie('myData', 1, 30); // myData=1 for 30 days. 
setCookie('myData', 1); // myData=1 'forever' (until the year 9999) 

Interviewee

Answer 15

I know there are many great answers. Often, I only need to read cookies and I do not want to create overhead by loading additional libraries or defining functions.

Here is how to read cookies in one line of javascript. I found the answer in Guilherme Rodrigues' blog article:

('; '+document.cookie).split('; '+key+'=').pop().split(';').shift()

This reads the cookie named key, nice, clean and simple.

Tedder

Answer 16

Try (doc here, SO snippet not works so run this one)

document.cookie = "test=1"             // set
document.cookie = "test=1;max-age=0"   // unset

Bring

Answer 17

The following code will remove all cookies within the current domain and all trailing subdomains (www.some.sub.domain.com, .some.sub.domain.com, .sub.domain.com and so on.).

A single line vanilla JS version (no need for jQuery):

document.cookie.replace(/(?<=^|;).+?(?=\=|;|$)/g, name => location.hostname.split('.').reverse().reduce(domain => (domain=domain.replace(/^\.?[^.]+/, ''),document.cookie=`${name}=;max-age=0;path=/;domain=${domain}`,domain), location.hostname));

This is a readable version of this single line:

document.cookie.replace(
  /(?<=^|;).+?(?=\=|;|$)/g, 
  name => location.hostname
    .split(/\.(?=[^\.]+\.)/)
    .reduceRight((acc, val, i, arr) => i ? arr[i]='.'+val+acc : (arr[i]='', arr), '')
    .map(domain => document.cookie=`${name}=;max-age=0;path=/;domain=${domain}`)
);

Hamelin

Answer 18

I know, there are plenty of answers already, but here's one that has set, get, and delete all beautifully vanilla and nicely put into a global reference:

window.cookieMonster = window.cookieMonster || 
    {
        // https://mcmap.net/q/46391/-what-is-the-shortest-function-for-reading-a-cookie-by-name-in-javascript
        get: function (cookieName) {
            var b = document.cookie.match('(^|;)\\s*' + cookieName + '\\s*=\\s*([^;]+)');
            return b ? b.pop() : '';
        },

        delete: function (name) {
            document.cookie = '{0}=; Path=/; Expires=Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:01 GMT;'
                .replace('{0}', name);
        },

        set: function (name, value) {
            document.cookie =
                '{0}={1};expires=Fri, 31 Dec 9999 23:59:59 GMT;path=/;SameSite=Lax'
                .replace('{0}', name)
                .replace('{1}', value);
        }
    };

Notice cookie getting regex was taken from this answer to a question in another castle.

---

And let's test:

cookieMonster.set('chocolate', 'yes please');
cookieMonster.set('sugar', 'that too');

console.log(cookieMonster.get('chocolate'));
console.log(document.cookie);

cookieMonster.delete('chocolate');

console.log(cookieMonster.get('chocolate'));
console.log(document.cookie);

If you didn't have any cookies before trying, should give you...

yes please
chocolate=yes please; sugar=that too

sugar=that too

Notice the cookies last not quite heat-death-of-the-universe long, but essentially that from our perspective. You can figure out how to change dates pretty easily from looking at the strings here or from other answers.

Powerful