Mozilla/Firefox Cookie Format

Mostly for my own future reference…

This applies to permanent cookies only, as session cookies (cleared when you quit the browser) are not saved to a text file. One complete cookie per line, and each piece is separated by a tab character (‘\t’ in Python), not a standard space character as shown here:

.example.com TRUE / FALSE 1143149359 login_id 123456
www.yermom.com FALSE / FALSE 1143149359 my_nuts on

Domain: the domain that set & can subsequently read the cookie. This could include subdomains, e.g., .google.com means that local.google.com, news.google.com, whatever.google.com could possibly read the cookie, based on the next flag.

Flag: either TRUE or FALSE, whether or not all machines under that domain can read the cookie’s information.

Path: the root path under the domain where the cookie is valid. If this is /, the cookie is valid for the entire domain.

Secure Flag: either TRUE or FALSE, whether or not a secure connection (HTTPS) is required to read the cookie.

Expiration Timestamp: the “Unix Time” in seconds when the cookie is set to expire.

Name: the name of the value that the cookie is storing/saving.

Value: the value

Advertisement