How to enable cookies on Chrome: two settings, two places

Third-party cookies: the setting Google names first

Google’s help page for Chrome on a computer gives the path: open Chrome, select More at the top right, then Settings, then Privacy and security, then Third-party cookies, and choose Allow third-party cookies or Block third-party cookies. Google’s Account Help gives the same steps for anyone who has been told to turn cookies on to use a Google account. Google’s developer page for Chrome Enterprise points users to the address chrome://settings/cookies to add a site to the list of exceptions described below.

The choice matters because of what these cookies are. Google describes first-party cookies as created by the site you visit, the one shown in the address bar, and third-party cookies as created by different sites whose images, ads or text the page embeds. Any of those embedded sites, Google says, can use third-party cookies to personalize content and ads and to learn about what you do elsewhere on the web. Blocking them means all third-party cookies are blocked unless the site is on your exceptions list, and Google warns that if you don’t allow sites to save cookies, sites may not work as expected.

The University of Virginia’s help desk gives a second route on a Mac, through Site settings, where Third-party cookies sits under Content. Either way you reach the same choice.

The cookies of the site itself are a different setting

On the cookie page, Google sends anyone who wants to manage first-party cookies somewhere else: to a feature it calls on-device site data. Google’s Account Help says first-party cookies are a type of on-device site data. The page for it offers three choices: allow sites to save data on your device, delete the data sites have saved when you close all windows, and “Don’t allow sites to save data on your device (not recommended)”. Of the last, Google says sites may not work as you expect.

On a computer the setting is under Settings, Privacy and security, Site settings, Additional content settings, On-device site data, where you select a default behavior. If a site says cookies are off while third-party cookies are allowed, this is the next place to look. Of the seven results Google showed us for this question, only Google’s own two pages mention it, each as a link to another page.

Allowing cookies for one site only

You can keep third-party cookies blocked and still let one site use them. On a computer, Google’s steps are: Settings, Privacy and security, Third-party cookies, then under “Sites allowed to use third-party cookies” select Add and enter the web address. To cover a whole domain, Google says to put [*.] before the domain name, so [*.]google.com matches drive.google.com and calendar.google.com. Sites on this list can use third-party cookies in both regular and Incognito browsing modes. Northern Illinois University gives the same steps to its students for one address, its Blackboard site.

There is also a shorter route for the site you are on. In the address bar, select Third-party cookies blocked and turn on Third-party cookies; the page reloads, and the address bar then says Third-party cookies allowed. In regular browsing, Google says, the site is added to your exceptions list and keeps third-party cookies for 90 days or until you turn the setting off. In Incognito it lasts only for that session.

On an Android phone or tablet

Google’s Android page puts the main choice under Settings, Site settings, Third-party cookies, with the same two options. Its steps for a single site go through Privacy and security, Third-party cookies, then + Add site exception, so the same help page names two different routes into the setting. For the site you are on, tap Page info at the left of the address bar, then Cookies and site data, and turn Third-party cookies on. Google adds that a temporary permission given this way carries over into Incognito and can’t be reset from there.

The data the site itself saves has its own switch on Android too: Settings, then under Advanced, Site settings, On-device site data, which you turn on or off.

On an iPhone or iPad

Google’s cookie page for Chrome on iPhone and iPad describes one task: deleting cookies, under Settings, Privacy and Security, Delete Browsing Data, Cookies, Site Data. It has no section on allowing or blocking them. Lifewire, in an article updated on 24 June 2025, says that on iOS “Chrome automatically enables cookies, and they cannot be disabled”.

Two university guides point somewhere else. Northern Illinois University and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences tell students to open the iPhone’s own Settings app, select Chrome, and turn on Allow Cross-Website Tracking. Google’s page does not mention that switch, and we did not check it on an iPhone. ITarian describes a Cookies and Site Data screen with an Allow All Cookies option inside Chrome; Google’s iPhone page does not show one.

In an Incognito window

Google says third-party cookies are blocked by default in Incognito mode, and that sites which rely on them may not work as expected there. In our reading, that is why a site can work in a normal window and fail in an Incognito one. The exceptions list is the fix that lasts: Google says sites on it can use third-party cookies in both regular and Incognito modes. A temporary permission given inside an Incognito window ends with the session. What Incognito keeps and deletes is on Incognito mode.

When a site says cookies are turned off

Google’s Account Help is blunt about its own message: “If you get a message that cookies are turned off, you need to turn them on to use your account.” Its order is to turn them on with the steps above, try signing in again, and if the message stays, to open a new browser window, clear the browser’s cache and cookies, browse in private, or change the browser’s privacy settings, trying to sign in after each.

Put together with the Chrome pages, the checks run, in our reading, in this order: the third-party cookie setting, then on-device site data, then an exception for the one site that complains. Embedded services are where third-party cookies matter, and Google’s cookie page gives an example: a class portal with Google Docs inside it, where Google Docs asks for permission to use what it has saved about you. That connection, Google says, lasts for 30 days or as long as you remain active.

On a work or school device

On a managed Chrome the choice may not be yours. Google’s page warns that on a Chromebook used at work or school you might not be able to change the setting, and sends you to your administrator. Google’s developer page on Chrome Enterprise explains why: administrators can set a policy called BlockThirdPartyCookies. Enabled, it prevents third-party cookies from being set; disabled, it allows them and prevents users from blocking them from chrome://settings; left unset, they are allowed by default and users can block them. A second policy, CookiesAllowedForUrls, allows them for listed sites only. That page was written around Google’s test on 1% of users and was last updated in December 2023.

What happened to the plan to remove third-party cookies

Google’s own posts tell what happened to its plan in three steps. On 14 December 2023, Google announced it would start testing Tracking Protection on 4 January, restricting third-party cookies by default for 1% of Chrome users, as a step towards phasing them out for everyone in the second half of 2024, subject to the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority.

On 22 April 2025, Google’s Privacy Sandbox blog said Chrome would keep its current approach of offering users a choice, and “will not be rolling out a new standalone prompt for third-party cookies”. Users can make the choice in Chrome’s Privacy and Security settings, and Incognito already blocks them by default. On 17 October 2025, the same blog said Google would retire most of the Privacy Sandbox technologies built to replace them, Topics and Related Website Sets among them, while keeping CHIPS and FedCM. Chrome’s cookie help page, read on 23 October 2026, still describes a switch for related sites, Allow related sites to see your activity in the group.

If a guide shows a menu you cannot find

Several guides describe a Chrome screen called Cookies and other site data, with an option called Allow all cookies: CookieYes, ITarian in October 2025, and CookieScript in the part of its March 2025 page about the Mac, though its Windows steps use Third-party cookies. The UAMS guide uses the same old screen name. Google’s help pages read on 23 October 2026 use Third-party cookies and On-device site data instead, and none of them offers a single switch for all cookies. The two settings at the top of this page are the ones Google documents today.