How to clear the IE7 Browsing History from the Command Prompt

If you need to create batch files to automate cleanup on your computer, you’ll definitely need to include at least one of these commands in your batch script. You can automate any of the functions on the Internet Explorer 7 Delete Browsing History dialog.

This is the dialog that you probably used to see:



And below are the commands that correspond to the different buttons. The most important, on a cleanup perspective, is the first, which will delete the temporary internet files that are cluttering up in your computer.

To run these commands, you can just type them from the command line, the Start Menu search box in Vista, or a batch file.

Temporary Internet Files
RunDll32.exe InetCpl.cpl,ClearMyTracksByProcess 8

Cookies
RunDll32.exe InetCpl.cpl,ClearMyTracksByProcess 2

History
RunDll32.exe InetCpl.cpl,ClearMyTracksByProcess 1

Form Data
RunDll32.exe InetCpl.cpl,ClearMyTracksByProcess 16

Passwords
RunDll32.exe InetCpl.cpl,ClearMyTracksByProcess 32

Delete All
RunDll32.exe InetCpl.cpl,ClearMyTracksByProcess 255

Delete All – “Also delete files and settings stored by add-ons”
RunDll32.exe InetCpl.cpl,ClearMyTracksByProcess 4351

These commands also work in Internet Explorer 7 on XP or on Windows Vista.