How to delete specific cookies with Access VBA

Question

I guess the subject title pretty much tells it all. I need to delete specific cookies using a VBA program. Does anyone have code for this?

Thanks

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50% of programming is coding. The other 90% is debugging

Answer 1

Out of curiosity, why? Cookies are just files, so you should be able to use the Kill statement on them, but how will you know which ones to delete? Be aware, too, that where the cookies are stored depends on the operating system. By default, they're in C:\Users\<userid>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Cookies (at least, that's where they are in Vista and Win 7: sorry, don't have machines with any other OS handy!)

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Doug Steele, Microsoft Access MVP
http://www.AccessMVP.com/djsteele (no e-mails, please!)
Co-author Access Solutions — Tips, Tricks, and Secrets from Microsoft Access MVPs (ISBN 978-0-470-59168-0)

Answer 2

I am using windows 7 pro. I was hoping that the solution would include a way to list cookies and then maybe by knowing the website whose cookies I want to delete, I could determine what one(s) I'd be interested in deleting. If not, I would just delete all cookies created after a certain date or time. As to why, I submit numerous searches to a public website. After hitting a number of searches, it starts displaying a captcha text between every search requiring human intervention

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50% of programming is coding. The other 90% is debugging

Answer 3

Did you look in the folder I mentioned? As you can see, it's not particularly easy determining which cookie came from which site. On the plus side, though, Kill does work to delete the files.

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Doug Steele, Microsoft Access MVP
http://www.AccessMVP.com/djsteele (no e-mails, please!)
Co-author Access Solutions — Tips, Tricks, and Secrets from Microsoft Access MVPs (ISBN 978-0-470-59168-0)

Answer 4

I havent yet but what I'll do is, as soon as the captcha text displays, I will look at the most recent files added to that folder to see if theres one with a name that rings a bell. Or, I guess I could delete 1 file at a time, starting with the latest and going back until search is restored. Then that will tell me what file name to look for in the future (I hope). By the way, at the time I am blocked, can I assume that a new cookie was created with the blocking instructions, or might it be an old cookie that was just updated?

Thanks

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50% of programming is coding. The other 90% is debugging

Answer 5

Sorry, not sure. I suspect it updates an existing cookie, but you'll have to play and find out.

Good luck!

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Doug Steele, Microsoft Access MVP
http://www.AccessMVP.com/djsteele (no e-mails, please!)
Co-author Access Solutions — Tips, Tricks, and Secrets from Microsoft Access MVPs (ISBN 978-0-470-59168-0)

Answer 6

Thanks pal. I will post my findings

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50% of programming is coding. The other 90% is debugging

Answer 7

Hi JonWayn,

Welcome to the Access forum.

Please check this link to see if it helps:

http://www.visualbasic.happycodings.com/Files_Directories_Drives/code46.html

List and delete files in the internet cache (inc. cookies)

The following code can be used to query and delete files in the internet cache (including cookies). A demonstration routine can be found at the bottom of this post. Note, the enumerated type eCacheType is not supported in Excel 97, but can be changed to a list of Public Constants eg. Public Const eNormal = &H1&.

Option Explicit

'--------------------------Types, consts and structures
Private Const ERROR_CACHE_FIND_FAIL As Long = 0
Private Const ERROR_CACHE_FIND_SUCCESS As Long = 1
Private Const ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND As Long = 2
Private Const ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED As Long = 5
Private Const ERROR_INSUFFICIENT_BUFFER As Long = 122
Private Const MAX_CACHE_ENTRY_INFO_SIZE As Long = 4096

Private Const LMEM_FIXED As Long = &H0
Private Const LMEM_ZEROINIT As Long = &H40

Public Enum eCacheType
    eNormal = &H1&
    eEdited = &H8&
    eTrackOffline = &H10&
    eTrackOnline = &H20&
    eSticky = &H40&
    eSparse = &H10000
    eCookie = &H100000
    eURLHistory = &H200000
    eURLFindDefaultFilter = 0&
End Enum

Private Type FILETIME
    dwLowDateTime As Long
    dwHighDateTime As Long
End Type

Private Type INTERNET_CACHE_ENTRY_INFO
    dwStructSize As Long
    lpszSourceUrlName As Long
    lpszLocalFileName As Long
    CacheEntryType  As Long         'Type of entry returned
    dwUseCount As Long
    dwHitRate As Long
    dwSizeLow As Long
    dwSizeHigh As Long
    LastModifiedTime As FILETIME
    ExpireTime As FILETIME
    LastAccessTime As FILETIME
    LastSyncTime As FILETIME
    lpHeaderInfo As Long
    dwHeaderInfoSize As Long
    lpszFileExtension As Long
    dwExemptDelta  As Long
End Type

'--------------------------Internet Cache API
Private Declare Function FindFirstUrlCacheEntry Lib "Wininet.dll" Alias "FindFirstUrlCacheEntryA" (ByVal lpszUrlSearchPattern As String, lpFirstCacheEntryInfo As Any, lpdwFirstCacheEntryInfoBufferSize As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function FindNextUrlCacheEntry Lib "Wininet.dll" Alias "FindNextUrlCacheEntryA" (ByVal hEnumHandle As Long, lpNextCacheEntryInfo As Any, lpdwNextCacheEntryInfoBufferSize As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function FindCloseUrlCache Lib "Wininet.dll" (ByVal hEnumHandle As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function DeleteUrlCacheEntry Lib "Wininet.dll" Alias "DeleteUrlCacheEntryA" (ByVal lpszUrlName As String) As Long

'--------------------------Memory API
Private Declare Function LocalAlloc Lib "kernel32" (ByVal uFlags As Long, ByVal uBytes As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function LocalFree Lib "kernel32" (ByVal hMem As Long) As Long
Private Declare Sub CopyMemory Lib "kernel32" Alias "RtlMoveMemory" (pDest As Any, pSource As Any, ByVal dwLength As Long)
Private Declare Function lstrcpyA Lib "kernel32" (ByVal RetVal As String, ByVal Ptr As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function lstrlenA Lib "kernel32" (ByVal Ptr As Any) As Long


'Purpose     :  Deletes the specified internet cache file
'Inputs      :  sCacheFile              The name of the cache file
'Outputs     :  Returns True on success.


Function InternetDeleteCache(sCacheFile As String) As Boolean
    InternetDeleteCache = CBool(DeleteUrlCacheEntry(sCacheFile))
End Function


'Purpose     :  Returns an array of files stored in the internet cache
'Inputs      :  eFilterType             An enum which filters the files returned by their type
'Outputs     :  A one dimensional, one based, string array containing the names of the files


Function InternetCacheList(Optional eFilterType As eCacheType = eNormal) As Variant
    Dim ICEI As INTERNET_CACHE_ENTRY_INFO
    Dim lhFile As Long, lBufferSize As Long, lptrBuffer As Long
    Dim sCacheFile As String
    Dim asURLs() As String, lNumEntries As Long

    'Determine required buffer size
    lBufferSize = 0
    lhFile = FindFirstUrlCacheEntry(0&, ByVal 0&, lBufferSize)
   
    If (lhFile = ERROR_CACHE_FIND_FAIL) And (Err.LastDllError = ERROR_INSUFFICIENT_BUFFER) Then
    
        'Allocate memory for ICEI structure
        lptrBuffer = LocalAlloc(LMEM_FIXED, lBufferSize)
    
        If lptrBuffer Then
         
            'Set a Long pointer to the memory location
            CopyMemory ByVal lptrBuffer, lBufferSize, 4
            
            'Call first find API passing it the pointer to the allocated memory
            lhFile = FindFirstUrlCacheEntry(vbNullString, ByVal lptrBuffer, lBufferSize)        '1 = success
            
            If lhFile <> ERROR_CACHE_FIND_FAIL Then
            
                'Loop through the cache
                Do
                    'Copy data back to structure
                    CopyMemory ICEI, ByVal lptrBuffer, Len(ICEI)
                
                    If ICEI.CacheEntryType And eFilterType Then
                        sCacheFile = StrFromPtrA(ICEI.lpszSourceUrlName)
                        lNumEntries = lNumEntries + 1
                        If lNumEntries = 1 Then
                            ReDim asURLs(1 To 1)
                        Else
                            ReDim Preserve asURLs(1 To lNumEntries)
                        End If
                        asURLs(lNumEntries) = sCacheFile
                    End If
                
                    'Free memory associated with the last-retrieved file
                    Call LocalFree(lptrBuffer)
                    
                    'Call FindNextUrlCacheEntry with buffer size set to 0.
                    'Call will fail and return required buffer size.
                    lBufferSize = 0
                    Call FindNextUrlCacheEntry(lhFile, ByVal 0&, lBufferSize)
                    
                    'Allocate and assign the memory to the pointer
                    lptrBuffer = LocalAlloc(LMEM_FIXED, lBufferSize)
                    CopyMemory ByVal lptrBuffer, lBufferSize, 4&
                
                Loop While FindNextUrlCacheEntry(lhFile, ByVal lptrBuffer, lBufferSize)
            
            End If
        
        End If
    
    End If
   
    'Free memory
    Call LocalFree(lptrBuffer)
    Call FindCloseUrlCache(lhFile)
    InternetCacheList = asURLs
End Function


'Purpose     :  Converts a pointer an ansi string into a string.
'Inputs      :  lptrString                  A long pointer to a string held in memory
'Outputs     :  The string held at the specified memory address


Function StrFromPtrA(ByVal lptrString As Long) As String
    'Create buffer
    StrFromPtrA = String$(lstrlenA(ByVal lptrString), 0)
    'Copy memory
    Call lstrcpyA(ByVal StrFromPtrA, ByVal lptrString)
End Function


'Demonstration routine
Sub Test()
    Dim avURLs As Variant, vThisValue As Variant
    
    On Error Resume Next
    'Return an array of all internet cache files
    avURLs = InternetCacheList
    For Each vThisValue In avURLs
        'Print files
        Debug.Print CStr(vThisValue)
    Next
    
    'Return the an array of all cookies
    avURLs = InternetCacheList(eCookie)
    If MsgBox("Delete cookies?", vbQuestion + vbYesNo) = vbYes Then
        For Each vThisValue In avURLs
            'Delete cookies
            InternetDeleteCache CStr(vThisValue)
            Debug.Print "Deleted " & vThisValue
        Next
    Else
        For Each vThisValue In avURLs
            'Print cookie files
            Debug.Print vThisValue
        Next
    End If
End Sub

Have a nice day.

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Yoyo Jiang[MSFT]
MSDN Community Support | Feedback to us

Answer 8

Hi JonWayn,

I temporarily marked the reply as answer, and you can unmark it if it provides no help.

Have a nice day.

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Yoyo Jiang[MSFT]
MSDN Community Support | Feedback to us