Delete the temporary internet files when closing Internet Explorer

When you visit sites with Internet Explorer, the visited web pages will have information stored about them in a special folder on your computer called Temporary Internet Files (cookies included). This allows you to speed up the time taken to load these same sites at a future time as the files only need to load from the local disk (your computer) instead of from a remote server (web server). These files are stored until you have reached your predefined folder limit.

It is possible to increase or reduce the size of this folder (from 1Mb to 1 GB), although there is no option that allows you to delete these files when you close Internet Explorer. If you want these deleted then you will need to manually do it each time you remember! For security reasons and/or confidentiality it can be a good idea to purge these temporary files automatically.

Here is how you can purge your cache each time you close Internet Explorer:

Click “Start”, “Run” and type “regedit”. Click “OK and you will have the Windows Registry open.

Go to the following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\Cache

In the right hand side of the registry editor, double click on the Persistent entry and give it the value of 0 instead of 1.

You can also download this reg file that will create the change for you.

The change will immediately take effect and you will not need to reboot your computer.

Notes:

• To delete the cookies you will need manually do this on all versions older then Internet Explorer 6. For version 6 and later, there is an option under Internet Options that can perform this for you. Otherwise there are Freeware programs available to delete the cookies with two clicks of the mouse button.
• You must have all Internet Explorer windows closed for the cache to be purged.