I’m working with HtmlUnit headless browser for web automation in Java. I have some questions about cookie management:
When I visit websites using HtmlUnit, do the cookies from those sites get stored somewhere on my local machine?
If cookies are being saved, where exactly are they stored on my system?
Is there a way to delete or clear these cookies programmatically using HtmlUnit methods?
I want to make sure I can control cookie storage and clean up any saved cookies when needed. Any help with managing cookies in HtmlUnit would be great.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions or code examples you can share!
The cookie behavior depends on how you configure your WebClient instance. By default, HtmlUnit stores cookies in memory temporarily - they’re gone when your app shuts down. But if you’re running long sessions or multiple test cases, you’ll want to manage them explicitly. Besides clearCookies(), you can disable cookie handling completely with webClient.getCookieManager().setCookiesEnabled(false) before making requests. I’ve found this super useful when testing scenarios where you need a clean slate for each test run. You can also just create a fresh WebClient instance for each test case - gives you a clean cookie jar without any manual clearing.
HtmlUnit manages cookies in memory during the WebClient session, meaning they don’t persist on your local machine. If you want to clear the cookies while using HtmlUnit, you can do so through the CookieManager. Here’s how you can clear all cookies programmatically: WebClient webClient = new WebClient(); CookieManager cookieManager = webClient.getCookieManager(); cookieManager.clearCookies();. This approach simplifies cookie management, as all data is cleared when the WebClient instance is closed, eliminating concerns about leftover files.
just adding - if you need more control, remove specific cookies instead of clearing everything. use cookieManager.removeCookie(cookie) for individual ones. also, HtmlUnit doesn’t write cookies to disk by default, so no filesystem cleanup needed unless you configure it to.