UPDATE: 15TH SEP 2010: FLUSH 3.1 released

Launch Flush to preview your flash cookies and then delete them.

Original Post

For those who do not know about Flash cookies, more properly referred to as Local Shared Objects (LSO), they operate in a similar way to regular browser cookies but are stored outside the purview of your browser, meaning you cannot delete them from within your browser, whether Safari, Firefox, Opera or any other. Typically they are issued from sites or 3rd party sites that contain Adobe Flash content. Since virtually all internet advertising is  delivered in Flash, Google/Doubleclick and all other internet advertising companies are sure to be tracking your browsing behavior with Flash cookies. These companies can see you traverse the Internet as you come upon the plethora of sites that contain their embedded advertising. Check out the Wikipedia entry here.

In Mac OS X they are stored in the following location:
/User’s Home Folder/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash Player/#SharedObjects

The settings for the Flash cookies are stored in:
/User’s Home Folder/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash Player/macromedia.com/support/flashplayer/sys

In OS X Local Shared Objects, or Flash Cookies, are appended with a .sol suffix. Flush deletes the Flash cookies (.sol) and their settings.

Download Flush.app now

1. Kon, February 8, 2009:

   Thanks a lot for this guys, the link doesn’t seem to work though.

2. admin, February 9, 2009:

   right you are! thanks mate. now fixed

3. Mike, May 15, 2009:

   I installed this on Safari, but it has slowed very noticeably. Not sure if Flush is the cause, but I would like to remove it and see if that makes any difference. What is the procedure for removing it?

4. admin, May 15, 2009:

   Drag Flush.app to the trash – that’s it!

   Flush is a script that deletes your flash cookies. It does not run in the background or anything like that.

   Safari may slow initially when certain pages load and the flash cookies are re-spawned. Reloading the same page thereafter should return to normal page loading speed.

5. Mike, May 18, 2009:

   I deleted Flush and Safari seems to be much faster. I usually delete the cache and all cookies after each session, and am working off an erratic WiFi connection, but will retry Flush in coming weeks when I have a more reliable hookup. If the LSO cookies are being deleted by a Firefox utility (I have Better Privacy installed) assume that also remove LSO cookies accumulated by Safari? One suggestion: how about a display of how many cookies Flush removes–that would be a neat feature. Thanks

6. admin, May 19, 2009:

   I’m not sure if you have the latest version of Flush. The latest version produces a list of deleted flash cookies.

   The Firefox Private Data deletion feature does not delete Flash Cookies.

   If you have any doubt you can manually navigate to the Flash Cookie folder. And by all means delete them manually!

7. kees, June 23, 2009:

   Thanks. Worked for me

8. Jack, August 10, 2009:

   Hey, found this site though the link on Wired.
   Very nice app, thanks for your work.

9. Chase, August 11, 2009:

   The article about “flush” claims it works with MacOSX.3 (Panther), etc. I tried to download and install; however, a message showed up and said that “flush” did not work with my version of Mac, which is MacX-3.9. What up?!

10. Alistair, August 11, 2009:

    Thanks. It seems to work perfectly.

11. Mezzrow, August 11, 2009:

    Thanks very much for this. Greatly appreciated.

12. Sam, August 11, 2009:

    I’m running OSX 10.3.9 and I’ve downloaded Flush a number of times with different browsers and it keeps telling me I can’t use Flush with this OS.
    Have things changed?

    Sam

13. dorkypants, August 11, 2009:

    I just downloaded Flush.app and ran it on my Tiger (10.4.11) MacBook. The output window shows the following:

    —–
    sh: line 1: date.tmp: Permission denied
    sh: line 1: list.tmp: Permission denied
    sh: line 1: num.tmp: Permission denied
    cat: list.tmp: No such file or directory
    sh: line 1: out1.tmp: Permission denied
    sh: line 1: out2.tmp: Permission denied
    sh: line 1: out3.tmp: Permission denied
    sh: line 1: text.tmp: Permission denied
    cat: date.tmp: No such file or directory
    cat: text.tmp: No such file or directory
    rm: out1.tmp: No such file or directory
    rm: num.tmp: No such file or directory
    rm: out2.tmp: No such file or directory
    rm: out3.tmp: No such file or directory
    rm: list.tmp: No such file or directory
    rm: text.tmp: No such file or directory
    rm: date.tmp: No such file or directory
    —–

14. Jack, August 11, 2009:

    Good on ya, mate! Much appreciated!

15. CJD, August 12, 2009:

    What about just running this script:

    tell application “Finder”
    set theSharedObjects to (every item of folder “Macintosh HD:Users:user home folder:Library:Preferences:Macromedia:Flash Player:#SharedObjects”)
    set theSys to (every item of folder “Macintosh HD:Users:user home folder:Library:Preferences:Macromedia:Flash Player:macromedia.com:support:flashplayer:sys”)
    move theSharedObjects to trash
    move theSys to trash
    end tell

16. Anon, August 12, 2009:

    Feature request: Some banks use flash cookies to authenticate logins (the ones that ask extra questions the first time you use a computer with their website). Would it be possible to select which flash cookies to keep, with the rest deleted? (Otherwise, you will have to reauthenticate on each bank login.) Thanks.

17. Kikjou, August 12, 2009:

    I just made read-only the folder within /User’s Home Folder/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash Player/#SharedObjects. Then I did the same with the folder /User’s Home Folder/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash Player/macromedia.com/support/flashplayer/sys/.
    Went to youtube and to some other flash sites. There is no more of the flash cookies showing up in these folders and the flash seems not to be affected.

18. Robert, August 12, 2009:

    I just tried to use this with os 10.3.9 and got an error message. Does this still work on Panther?

    Thanks

19. Anoneee, August 15, 2009:

    It’s Nice that you are going to the trouble of giving a free little App but you are incorrect. This little app WILL NOT work on Panther 10.3. The reason it won’t is obvious and stated in the first 2 sentences of your post. :

    “But it didn’t work very well! So it has been re-written in Perl (thanks Andy) and wrapped into a Cocoa app with Platypus. ”

    Go to the Platypus Site: I quote: “Platypus and Platypus-generated applications REQUIRE Mac OS X 10.4…. ”

    You might want to correct your post.

20. admin, August 16, 2009:

    Thanks Anoneee and apologies to all those Panther users inconvenienced by this incorrect information. You can still delete manually though!

    If anybody would like to improve Flush please let me know. The original script can be found in the package contents. Making it into a nicer cocoa app with a better GUI and the ability to preview your cookies before deleting them etc etc would be great

    cheers

21. admin, August 16, 2009:

    @ dorkypants: thnaks for bringing this to my attention… it was an issue affecting standard (rather than admin) user accounts.
    Has now been fixed in Flush 0.21.
    cheers.

22. flusher, August 17, 2009:

    Although not listed as a feature, Flush.app also clears the Flash caches. This app should be submitted to MacUpdate, btw. Thanks!

23. WAP-Tek, August 19, 2009:

    @echo WAP-Tek’s flushflash.bat
    @echo i am not resposible for you IGNORING WARNINGs,,
    @echo LEARN TO HACK OR FAIL!
    @echo WAP-Tek.tk
    @echo .
    @echo WARNING read the contents of this “program” and edit it NOW
    @echo .
    @echo This file MUST be customized for you systems folder structure or
    @echo it WILL erase your system files by accident !!!
    @echo .
    @echo this is not guarenteed to work but
    @echo for a “safer” alternative you can block flash cookie creation,,
    @echo .
    @echo you can put a dummy file FOR each folder that shows sol files in it
    @echo place dummy files named after the sub-directorys listed as having
    @echo sol files , flash will fail to save anything because
    @echo it cannot understand that a file is not a directory
    @echo .
    @ECHO press [Ctrl] [C] to stop this NOW !!
    @echo .
    @echo or
    @pause

    @cd “C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player”
    @dir /a
    @ECHO press [Ctrl] [C] to stop this NOW or
    @echo .
    @echo or
    @pause
    @deltree /Y *.*

    @cd “C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Adobe\Flash Player\AssetCache”
    @dir /a
    @ECHO press [Ctrl] [C] to stop this NOW or
    @ECHO .
    @echo or
    @pause
    @deltree /Y *.*
    @cls
    @exit

24. Just Me, August 20, 2009:

    I ran the app but other than it just showing it’s loaded, nothing happens. The files in the Macromedia folder are still there and I don’t see any output list of files deleted (as indicated in other posts, above). I’m running OSX 10.5.8

    What am I missing?

25. Paul, August 21, 2009:

    Hi Flush works well but have discovered an oddity which Im hoping someone may help. After using flush Ive discovered that a web site http://www.russiatoday.com keeps appearing in the flush window. Even if i haven’t been to any sites??? I have Little Snitch also with the site set as denied and yet it still appears when I activate Flush. Anyone have any idea’s as to how I can permanently stop http://www.russiatoday from appearing on my computer. Cheers.

26. MB, August 23, 2009:

    I’m also just getting the app loading but nothing else happens. On 10.5.6

27. Kevin Bacon, August 23, 2009:

    This app get my vote for app of the year. I just wish there was some way to pick and choose the flash cookies to flush rather than just flushing them all.

28. Jim Brandt, August 25, 2009:

    Here’s the error I’m seeing when executing on 10.5.8:

    Flush[9085]: Exception raised during posting of notification. Ignored. exception: ‘*** -[NSTextView setFont:]: nil NSFont given.’ invoked observer method: ‘*** -[ScriptExecController applicationDidFinishLaunching:]‘ observer: 0×143210 notification name: ‘NSApplicationDidFinishLaunchingNotification’

29. john vasko, August 28, 2009:

    downloaded. Icon in dock. Flush opens, but nothing happens. I cannot move the icon from the dock.
    What am I missing here?

30. Steve, August 29, 2009:

    Hi, I am a Flash developer. You would have been asked by the Flash webpage whether it can store info onto your computer before it went ahead and saved data to your system. You can only store text in a Flash Shared Object file, and it is only available to another Flash page in the same URL. To be worried by data that Flash stores on your system is probably something you should not worry about. IMHO

31. mike, August 31, 2009:

    doubleclick is spelled wrong.
    “Google/Doudleclick”

32. Leopold Bloom, September 2, 2009:

    On OS X, setting ~/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash Player/#SharedObjects as a link to /dev/null appears to work. However I noticed that for a couple of websites Flash stopped working, notably theonion.com. Curious, I set #SharedObjects back to be a real directory and it worked again. Any ideas on this? Perhaps I should use /tmp or better, some other directory emptied on browser exit. You’ve also got to watch ~/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/FlashPlayer/macromedia.com/support/flashplayer/sys, the @#$%(:>:&@ thing puts them in there too. And why the hell is an external website required to manage a locally installed application? This stinks…

33. Leopold Bloom, September 3, 2009:

    Re: previous post – argh! Grooveshark won’t work either unless the directory actually exists.

34. Gordon Cook, September 6, 2009:

    Tried to use the program. Nothing happened, so I flushed it right down the trash!!! Why can’t you make something that works.

35. admin, September 7, 2009:

    Good point Gordo… Flush is by no means consistent and I appreciate all the feedback and bugs people are posting. I humbly apologise and promise to improve Flush in 0.3. Gimme a couple of days. If there are any developers who wanna help make this simple app more reliable pls email machackstv (@) googlemail.com

    In the meantime if Flush does not work for you pls post details and your OS version and proceed to delete your flash cookies manually (just drag to trash). Find them in the locations mentioned in the above post.

36. admin, September 7, 2009:

    Thanks for your comment Leopold.

    “And why the hell is an external website required to manage a locally installed application? This stinks…”

    Agreed!

37. admin, September 7, 2009:

    Dear Gordo. Have just posted Flush 0.3. Give it a try. And you too Leo . And anybody else… Peace

    Download it here: http://machacks.tv/wp-content/downloads/Flush.zip

38. oriste, September 7, 2009:

    Just downloaded the latest version (contrary to what you say here, 0.3, it says “version 1.1″ in the Finder). I got the message “The action “Find Finder Items” could not be loaded because it could not be located.” Mac OS X 10.5.8

39. oriste, September 7, 2009:

    Further to the previous post, I looked inside the package, at the document.wflow file. There were 2 references to “/System/Library/Automator/Find Finder Items 2.action” (on lines 231 and 375). That file does not exist on my system. I changed those to “/System/Library/Automator/Find Finder Items.action” which does exist. Saved and ran the app again. I got past the previous error, but this time all I got was an empty list, with nothing to select from. Stuck.

40. admin, September 7, 2009:

    Thanks oriste. Indeed – /System/Library/Automator/Find Finder Items 2.action is a file that only comes with Snow Leo! Am working on a fix, altho zipping flush up with this missing action for Leopard users to install separately would seem the obvious workaround.

41. John L., September 7, 2009:

    The latest Flush (0.3) also doesn’t seem to work with Tiger. Snow Leopard is on its way, but for now I’m back to reaming out the Flash cookies manually.

42. admin, September 7, 2009:

    The Automator action ‘Find Finder Items’ has different versions in Sno Leo and Leo. The use of the formers’ version is deprecated in the latter

    So there will need to be 2 versions of Flush, one for Sno Leo and one for Leo. In a few hours the Leo version will be posted.

43. admin, September 7, 2009:

    Once I get the Leo version working I’ll look into Tiger. Thanks for the feedback John

44. admin, September 7, 2009:

    …but the latters’ is not deprecated in the former!

    So I have just released Flush 0.3.1 compatible with Leo AND Sno Leo. Will check Tiger shortly.

    Special thanks to oriste

45. John L., September 9, 2009:

    OK. I tried version 0.3.1 on my iMac (Intel Core Duo, 20-inch, OS 10.4.11). It just fails to launch; no dialog box; nothing. Could you post the old version (0.2) on this website, or maybe just email me a copy? That worked perfectly for me. …until the USPS gets Snow Leopard here from Arizona…

46. admin, September 10, 2009:

    Thanks for the feedback. Will post the version for 10.4 shortly. Check back in a few hours.

47. Luke R, September 17, 2009:

    Flush v0.2 works with my MDD Dual 1.25Ghz G4 running Mac OSX 10.4.11. I use it now at least twice a week. I did not know until just now there is an updated version. I shall download it and try it out.

48. Luke R, September 17, 2009:

    and by the way the first time i used Flush it found 677 flash cookies. I was blown away!

49. Luke R, September 17, 2009:

    crap. I downloaded v0.3 and tried it and it would not open. so i tried v0.3.1, same thing, nothing works… and unfortunately like a noob I forgot to move v0.2 so it wouldn’t be overwritten. Ugh. Now I wish I could get that Flush v0.2 back! It actually worked with Tiger on my PPC G4. Oh well.

50. John L., September 22, 2009:

    Anything yet for Tiger?

51. marcus38, September 23, 2009:

    I just downloaded version 0.3.1 and tried to run it. Nothing happened. It appeared to ‘open’ but there no windows opened nor any indication of activity regarding the Library files. Perhaps I am not doing something correct, or I am looking for the the wrong things to occur, else, the apps is not working properly. My system config is 10.4.11, which in the comments may not yet be addressed.

52. DC Flash, October 19, 2009:

    Change “your name here” to whatever your login name is and save this AppleScript as an application.

    tell application “Finder”
    if file “Acrobat WebCapture Cookies” of folder “8.0_ppc” of folder “Acrobat” of folder “Preferences” of folder “Library” of folder “your name here” of folder “Users” of startup disk exists then
    delete file “Acrobat WebCapture Cookies” of folder “8.0_ppc” of folder “Acrobat” of folder “Preferences” of folder “Library” of folder “your name here” of folder “Users” of startup disk
    end if
    end tell

53. Whats up ?, November 3, 2009:

    This is not deleting said files in 10.5.8 for me. Having to do it manually atm

54. JW, November 6, 2009:

    Nice. Works great with Panther. Thanks and looking forward to more applications from you guys.

55. Friarbones, November 16, 2009:

    I have 10.4.11 and would like to get an older version of Flush as .3 does not seem to work. Is there a link for an older version for 10.4?
    Thanks

56. Jim026, November 17, 2009:

    Running OSX 10.4.11, just installed Flush 0.3.1 into applications folder, nothing happens when clicked, where does this software need to be installed to?
    Is there a READ.ME for this software?

    thanks Jim

57. Lisa, November 18, 2009:

    i downloaded this but i have no idea what to do with the files. after i extracted the downloaded file, i see 2 folders: Flush.app, and __MACOSX. I’m using Windows XP. What do i do for this to work?

58. ndndancer, November 18, 2009:

    Just down loaded and ran flush, everything seems to have done what it was suppose to do ! ( like I know what that is ) YAH !

    But after I was done I noticed I didn’t close all open windows. Does this mean I deleted parts of flush ?
    And should I down load it again ?

59. admin, November 21, 2009:

    Panther 10.3 and Tiger 10.4 users can try using ‘Flush Tiger’ which can be downloaded at http://machacks.tv/wp-content/downloads/Flush-Tiger.zip

    Please report back on any success/failure using this version of Flush

60. Albert, November 24, 2009:

    Thank you to those responsible for the creation of this nifty little app. It seems to be doing exactly what it is advertised to be doing.

    thank you

61. Chris, November 25, 2009:

    I find that after I click OK and then relaunch the app, the same flash cookies are listed, seemingly indicating it didn’t delete any of them. Why would that be?

62. BD, December 22, 2009:

    Flush Tiger is working a treat – thanks for that

63. Leon, December 28, 2009:

    Not sure if this has already been suggested, but is there any way you could make the app more automatic? I would like to be able to double click the app and have it clear everything without having to click several buttons to get to the end. Just double click, it does its thing, and then automatically closes would be great

64. Steve, January 6, 2010:

    i still use flush 0.2 on my macbook pro 10.6.2. it works fine and i like to only click QUIT in the window.

65. O. M., January 7, 2010:

    Flush Tiger Working on Tiger.11 release with safari 3.2.1 running. Dual 1ghz G4 (MDD) haven’t updated to sec update 005 (2009), or Java Release 9 updates… thanks so much for this app!

66. thename ofthething, January 27, 2010:

    Flush seems to set root perms on the cookeis directories. Sites like http://southparkstudios.com require that flash cookies be allowed and tell you a URL to go to to change the settings. I tried for hours to figure out what was happening and why I couldn’t simply re-enable the cookies temporarily.

    This info should be noted someplace or maybe the root perms with readonly not set at all.

67. Mark, April 9, 2010:

    There’s a Firefox addon that does the same thing. Anyway, a simple script can do this, as other posters have shown.

68. Mark, April 9, 2010:

    Steve, nice try at telling a lie.

    Crooked people like you always troll these web sites and post disinformation.

    A friend of mine uses Flash (I don’t). It never asked him about Flash cookies, but I found a buttload of them on his system.

    Any data that can be stored in binary can be stored in text. It’s called base64. Text data can be encrypted into a text format.

    Text data can appear garbled, because it is really a database key, and the server can use it to send and receive to databases shared by Internet Crook Services, Inc. (or doubleclick, etc.)

69. Mark, April 9, 2010:

    One final comment.

    Flash cookies are not the only problem with Flash.
    Flash is chock full of security holes.

    I have no problem using the Web without video. Text is a much faster way to convey information.

70. VXO, June 10, 2010:

    When I run it out of Terminal, I can see it’s trying to do something but not quite making it.

    2010-06-10 15:02:35.450 Flush[41932:10b] Exception raised during posting of notification. Ignored. exception: ‘*** -[NSTextView setFont:]: nil NSFont given.’ invoked observer method: ‘*** -[ScriptExecController applicationDidFinishLaunching:]‘ observer: 0×136860 notification name: ‘NSApplicationDidFinishLaunchingNotification’

71. admin, September 10, 2010:

    With the release of Flush 3.0 i hope all above issues will be resolved. If there are any developers who want to help make flush more fully featured please let me know.

72. Sam Huff, September 21, 2010:

    Does this board change \” to the open and close forms automatically? I saw two scripts where this apparently happened.

73. shanes, September 23, 2010:

    Hi Machacks:
    I had to go back to the old version of Flush because this one didn’t act the same way as the old one (ver. 0.3.1). Version 3.1 launched Terminal and only a single dialog came up asking if I wanted to trash these flash cookies. I quit out of it before proceeding. I’m sunning MBP 10.5.8 Thanks for making Flush by the way, it’s the best flash .lso remover out there.

74. Steve A., September 29, 2010:

    Hi Machacks:
    same problems like shanes…..

    I had to go back to the old version of Flush because this one didn’t act the same way as the old one (ver. 0.3.1). Version 3.1 launched Terminal and only a single dialog came up asking if I wanted to trash these flash cookies. I quit out of it before proceeding. I’m sunning MBP 10.6.4 Thanks for making Flush by the way, it’s the best flash .lso remover out there.

75. Niko, September 30, 2010:

    I triy out the new 3.1 too. my terminal windows tel me about an error. i use OSX 10.6. where can i get the older FLUSH ver.0.3.1 ?

76. Gary, October 28, 2010:

    Nice app. Just one annoyance:

    It kills the terminal app. For instance, I have a terminal window up that I’m developing on, I run Flush and when it completes flushing, it kills the window I was using previously. Other than that, great app.

77. Joi Ror, December 3, 2010:

    Like Kikjou posted, the best way to get rid of the files is to lock the “Flash Player” folder in the get info box.

78. kramer, February 8, 2011:

    will try this out, thanks in advance… really need to change type link color… more contrast please (a lighter red)

79. muzso, May 1, 2011:

    Thanks for the AppleScript app!
    You might want to consider the following optimizations for the shell command launched by the script:
    ls -R ~/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash*Player | grep -vE ‘(preferences|settings)’ | grep ‘\.sol$’ | cat -n