V7 of CCleaner doesn't clean Opera cookies completely

[warwick.t]

Version 7 of CCleaner for Windows (I currently have v 7.3.1120.0) STILL doesn’t clean Opera cookies completely (currently v125.0.5729.49). After running Custom Clean the report says that a number of Opera cookies—perhaps hundreds—have been cleaned but when I look at cookies in Opera itself there are still hundreds remaining including for sites I have only visited recently. Only a few of the remaining cookies relate to sites on my “cookies to keep” list.

I raised this issue soon after v7 was released. When will it be addressed?

(The same thing happened late in the life of version 6—there was a period extending over a number of updates when CCleaner failed to clean Opera cookies. It took a long time—too long—to get it fixed.)

[Laurence_CCleaner]

Hi @warwick.t,
When I perform a default clean on Opera the cookies look to be fully cleaned.
Please can you let me know the location of the files you are seeing that are not being cleaned so I can investigate this further.
I was using Opera v126.0.5750.43

[warwick.t]

Thanks for getting back Laurence.

I’ve done a bit of playing around and it is not straightforward!

ChatGPT tells me Opera cookies should be in a database as follows:

C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Opera Software\Opera Stable\Network\Cookies

A search (using Everything) on my computer for “cookies” yields the following in Opera-related folders:

The relevant files are the two January 2026 ones. It looks like Opera currently stores cookies in:

C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Opera Software\Opera Stable\Default\Network\Cookies

I have about 380 cookies under “Seel all site data and permissions” on the following page chrome://settings/cookies.

I ran a CCleaner Health Check and it indicated that 157 items/9.7MB of Opera cookies would be cleaned. After running that scan it says that 153 items/9.1MB were cleaned but the cookie count in Opera is unchanged at about 380 and I still have the 1,344kB Cookies file.

It is not clear where the 9.1MB of cleaned cookies were located. If I then rename what appears to be the current cookies file i.e. the 1,344kB Cookies file, to Cookiesold, and go in to Opera again, all the 380 odd cookies still appear to be there. This suggests there is a backup copy somewhere or “Cookies” isn’t the relevant file. (Note that Synchronisation is “OFF” in my profile.)

If I then delete all cookie data from within Opera (the “Delete all data” button), it deletes most but not all cookies leaving about 35, and the file list looks like this i.e. the Cookies file is much smaller:

If I then delete the “Cookies” file and rename “Cookiesold” to “Cookies” my original cookies list is not restored—there are still only about 35. It seems that there is an interaction between “Cookies-journal” and “Cookies”. When I ask ChatGPT, it confirms that there is a relationship although the detail is a bit beyond me.

I guess my simple point is that the late/final updates of version 6 cleaned my Opera cookies as expected whereas version 7 doesn’t.

Regards

Warwick

[warwick.t]

I now have CCleaner V7.5.1241.0 and STILL it doesn’t clean Opera Cookies e.g. one from a site that I visited for the first time yesterday (and isn’t on my keep list) is still there after cleaning.

[Laurence_CCleaner]

Checking the C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Opera Software\Opera Stable folder, I am not seeing a networks folder.

I am on v128.0.5807.66 please can you send me a screenshot showing what version you are on?

[warwick.t]

warwick.t:

Hi Laurence

Thanks for that. As I observed previously, the Network folder in my setup is in fact in the …Opera Stable\Default\ folder where you can also see the Cookies file:

Note the Date modified for the Cookies file is today’s date and time i.e. it is clearly the “active” Cookies location.

Regards

Wawick

[warwick.t]

… and my current Opera version is:

Warwick

PS Interesting point: when I tried to post my reply with both screenshots, it rejected the post with the message that I had exceeded the 30,000 character limit. It said the combined character count was something over 41,000!

[warwick.t]

I now have CCleaner v7.6.1275.0 and still it doesn’t clean Opera cookies.

Warwick

[Laurence_CCleaner]

Hi @warwick.t,
Thanks for your patience while we looked into this. Our development team has investigated and confirmed that the cookies file at:

C:\Users\<YourUsername>\AppData\Roaming\Opera Software\Opera Stable\Default\Network\Cookies

is in fact being cleaned correctly by CCleaner. The key thing to understand is that this file is a SQLite 3 database, not a plain cookie file. Because of that, CCleaner does not delete the file outright — instead it runs a SQL query against the database to remove the individual cookie entries inside it. The file itself will therefore always remain on disk after a clean, but its contents will have been cleared (apart from anything you’ve added to CCleaner’s Cookies to Keep / Trusted sites list).

We’ve verified this behavior on CCleaner 7, and this cleans the Opera cookies databases in the expected way.

As an example, here’s what the Cookies SQLite database looks like before a clean — in this case 38 cookie rows from sites like bbc.com, piano.io, etc.:

Figure 1: The cookies table inside ...\Opera Stable\Default\Network\Cookies populated with 38 entries prior to running CCleaner.

And here’s the same database opened immediately after a CCleaner clean — the file is still present on disk, but the cookies table is now empty (Records: 0):

Figure 2: The same cookies table after CCleaner has run — the file remains, but all cookie entries have been removed from within it.

A couple of things worth checking on your side that explain what you’re seeing in Opera’s chrome://settings/cookies page:

• Entries with cookie counts vs. entries without – on that settings page, Opera lists every site that has any local storage, not just cookies. Sites shown with an actual cookie count are real cookies; sites shown with no cookies listed but still appearing in the list are there because of other storage types (cached files, IndexedDB, local storage, service workers, etc.), which are cleaned under different CCleaner rules.

• Trusted sites / Cookies to Keep – any site on that list in CCleaner will be deliberately preserved, so their cookies will survive a clean.

• File size – because the SQLite database reuses free pages internally rather than shrinking the file, the Cookies file can stay roughly the same size on disk even after the entries inside have been removed. Opening the DB will show the rows have gone.

If after a clean you’re still seeing specific cookies you didn’t add to Cookies to Keep actually present in the database (i.e. the site has a cookie count against it in Opera’s settings, not just “no cookies” storage), please let me know the exact site names and we will investigvate this further — but based on testing, the Cookies database itself is being cleared as expected in v7.

[warwick.t]

Hi Laurence.

Thanks for that explanation and your patience.

Unfortunately I can’t see the two Figures in your post but that probably doesn’t matter. I have just installed an SQLLite viewer and opened the Cookies file and, on a quick look, everything indeed looks as it should be after Cleaning. I will let you know if I come across any issues after a closer look.

With your explanation I now realise that I had wrongly assumed that every entry in the “See all site data and permissions” list in Opera represented a Cookie. Having said that, should CCleaner be cleaning everything relating to sites that are not on the Cookies to Keep list? If I recall correctly, V6 used to do that–after cleaning, the only entries remaining in the See all site data and permissions list were for sites on the Cookies to Keep list.

Thanks again

Warwick

[Laurence_CCleaner]

Apologies @warwick.t, I have added the images as attachments to my previous post so you should be able to see them now.

[warwick.t]

Hi Laurence

As I said previously, on checking, V7 indeed cleans cookies as expected i.e. the only sites with cookies that remain after cleaning are those on the cookies to keep list. Then there are those entries for sites with no cookies. In your previous post you say that “sites shown with no cookies listed but still appearing in the list are there because of other storage types (cached files, IndexedDB, local storage, service workers, etc.), which are cleaned under different CCleaner rules.”

In CCleaner settings for Opera I have every option ticked except for “Saved Passwords” (I have saved passwords in Opera for a handful of sites). Even with those settings, there are still about 400 entries in the “See all site data and permissions” list after cleaning. What rules have I missed that would clean those entries?

Thanks

Warwick