The Amnesiac Browser
A web browser’s history is incredibly useful for quickly jumping back to a recipe you found yesterday or an article you half-read last week. Google Chrome is designed to retain this browsing history indefinitely (or until you manually clear it). However, if you notice that Chrome is completely wiping your history, logging you out of every website, and clearing your cookies every single time you close the application, your browser is suffering from amnesia. This makes for a highly secure, private browsing experience, but it completely destroys the convenience of a modern web browser for daily use.
Disabling “Clear on Exit” Settings
To retain your login sessions and stop Google Chrome from automatically deleting your browsing history and cookies every time you close the program, you must disable the aggressive “Clear on exit” privacy setting.
Open Google Chrome. Click the three vertical dots in the top-right corner and select Settings. In the left-hand navigation pane, click on Privacy and security. In the main window, click on Site Settings. Scroll down and click on Additional content settings to expand the menu, then click on On-device site data (in older versions of Chrome, this might just be called “Cookies and other site data”). Look for a master toggle switch labeled Delete data sites have saved to your device when you close all windows (or “Clear cookies and site data when you close all windows”). If this toggle is turned on (blue), Chrome will wipe your session data upon exit. Click the toggle to switch it to the Off (grey) position. Your history and logins will now persist between sessions.