How to Set, Get, and Delete WordPress Cookies (Like a Pro)

When one of our WordPress sites started having issues with user logins and shopping cart functionality, we discovered it all came down to cookie management.

Like many WordPress users, we had overlooked the importance of properly handling cookies, and it was causing real problems for our visitors.

Since then, we’ve made it our mission to understand everything about WordPress cookies.

We’ve tested different methods, worked with various plugins, and developed a foolproof system for managing cookies effectively. Whether you’re running a simple blog or an e-commerce site, proper cookie management is crucial for your site’s success.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through everything you need to know about WordPress cookies, using the same straightforward approach that’s helped millions of WPBeginner readers solve their cookie-related challenges.

What Are Cookies?

Cookies are plain text files that are created and stored in the users’ browsers when they visit a website. You can use cookies to add different features to your WordPress website.

Here are some common use cases for cookies:

• Storing and managing a user’s login information
• Storing temporary session information during a user’s visit
• Remembering cart items during a user’s visit to an eCommerce store
• Tracking user activity on a site to offer a personalized user experience

While cookies are powerful tools for website owners, they can raise privacy concerns. Modern marketing practices, including email marketing, growth hacking, and digital advertising, often use cookies as tracking beacons to collect and share user activity across multiple websites.

This is why the European Union enacted the EU Cookie Law, which requires website owners to declare that they use cookies to store information. While many sites simply display a basic notice, true GDPR compliance requires actively managing cookie consent and tracking scripts.

WPConsent makes it easy to add a fully compliant cookie consent system to your WordPress site. This plugin goes beyond basic notifications by actively blocking tracking scripts until visitors give their permission.

Creating a cookie consent banner with WPConsent is simple. You can choose a pre-made template, customize the design to match your site, and let the plugin automatically handle all visitor consent management for you.

You can learn how to do this on your own site in our guide on how to add a cookies popup for GDPR/CCPA.

How Cookies Are Used on a Typical WordPress Website

By default, WordPress uses cookies to manage logged-in user sessions and authentication and to remember a user’s name and email address if they fill out a comment form.

However, many WordPress plugins on your website may also set their own cookies.

For example, OptinMonster allows you to show different email optin forms to new vs. returning visitors, and it does that by using cookies.

If you are using external web services on your website, like Google Analytics or Google AdSense, then they may also set third-party cookies on your website.

You can view all website cookies in your browser’s settings. For example, in Google Chrome, you need to start by opening the Settings page.

You can do this by clicking the ‘3 dots’ icon at the top right and selecting ‘Settings’ or by typing chrome://settings into the address bar.

On the Settings page, you need to search for ‘Site settings’ and click on it to open the page.

Under ‘Site settings’ scroll down the page to the ‘Content’ section and click on ‘Third-party cookies.’

This will open the cookies settings page.

Next, you need to click on the ‘See all site data and permissions’ option.

On the next page, you will see a list of all cookies and site data stored on your browser by all websites you have visited.

You can type a website address in the search box, and you will be shown the data stored by that website.

Clicking on a single item will show you more details about individual cookies and their contents.

How to Set a Cookie in WordPress

To follow this tutorial, you will need to add code to your theme’s functions.php file or use a code snippet plugin such as WPCode. If you haven’t done this before, then please take a look at our guide on how to copy and paste code snippets in WordPress.

First, we will use the setcookie() function in PHP. This function accepts the following parameters:

• Cookie name
• Cookie value
• Expire – optional and sets a time period after which the cookie expires
• Path – optional and will use the site’s root by default
• Domain – optional and uses your website’s domain by default
• Secure – optional, and only transfers cookie data via HTTPS if true
• httponly – optional, and when set to true, the cookie is only accessible via HTTP and cannot be used by scripts

Now, let’s add a code snippet to your WordPress site. This code stores the exact timestamp when a user visited your website in a cookie:

function wpb_cookies_tutorial1() { 

$visit_time = date('F j, Y  g:i a');

if(!isset($_COOKIE[wpb_visit_time])) {

// set a cookie for 1 year
setcookie('wpb_visit_time', $visit_time, time()+31556926);

}

} 

You can now visit your website and then check your browser cookies. You will find a cookie with the name wpb_visit_time.

How to Get a Cookie and Use It in WordPress

Now that we have created this cookie that’s stored in the user’s browser for one year, let’s look at how we can use this information on our website.

If you know the name of a cookie, then you can easily call it anywhere in PHP using the $_COOKIE[] variable. Let’s add some code that not only sets the cookie but also uses it to do something on your website:

function wpb_cookies_tutorial2() {
// Time of user's visit
$visit_time = date('F j, Y g:i a');

// Check if cookie is already set
if(isset($_COOKIE['wpb_visit_time'])) {

// Do this if cookie is set
function visitor_greeting() {

// Use information stored in the cookie
$lastvisit = $_COOKIE['wpb_visit_time'];

$string .= 'You last visited our website '. $lastvisit .'. Check out whats new'; 

return $string;
}	

} else { 

// Do this if the cookie doesn't exist
function visitor_greeting() {
$string .= 'New here? Check out these resources...' ;
return $string;
}	

// Set the cookie
setcookie('wpb_visit_time',  $visit_time, time()+31556926);
}

// Add a shortcode
add_shortcode('greet_me', 'visitor_greeting');

}
add_action('init', 'wpb_cookies_tutorial2');

We have commented within the code to show you what each part does. This code uses the information stored in the cookie and outputs it using shortcode.

You can now add the shortcode [greet_me] anywhere on your website, and it will show when a user last visited.

Feel free to modify the code to make it more useful for your website. For example, you can show recent posts to returning users and popular posts to new users.

Deleting a Cookie in WordPress

So far, we have learned how to set a cookie and use it later on your website. Now, let’s take a look at how to delete cookies.

To delete a cookie, you need to add the following line to your code:

unset($_COOKIE['wpb_visit_time']);

Don’t forget to replace wpb_visit_time with the name of the cookie you are trying to delete.

Let’s put this code in some context using the same sample code we used above. This time, we will delete a cookie and set it again with new information:

function wpb_cookies_tutorial2() {
// Time of user's visit
$visit_time = date('F j, Y g:i a');

// Check if cookie is already set
if(isset($_COOKIE['wpb_visit_time'])) {

// Do this if cookie is set
function visitor_greeting() {

// Use information stored in the cookie
$lastvisit = $_COOKIE['wpb_visit_time'];

$string .= 'You last visited our website '. $lastvisit .'. Check out whats new'; 

// Delete the old cookie so that we can set it again with updated time
unset($_COOKIE['wpb_visit_time']); 

return $string;
}	

} else {
// Do this if the cookie doesn't exist
function visitor_greeting() {
$string .= 'New here? Check out these resources...' ;
return $string;
}
}
add_shortcode('greet_me', 'visitor_greeting');

// Set or Reset the cookie
setcookie('wpb_visit_time',  $visit_time, time()+31556926);
}
add_action('init', 'wpb_cookies_tutorial2');

As you can see, this code deletes the cookie once we have used the information stored inside. Later, we set the cookie again with the updated time information.

Expert Guides on Using Cookies With WordPress

We hope this article helped you learn how to easily set, get, and delete WordPress cookies. You may also want to see some other guides related to using cookies in WordPress:

• Glossary: Cookies
• How to Use Cookie Retargeting in WordPress to Show Custom On-Site Messages
• How to Know if Your WordPress Website Uses Cookies
• How to Add a Cookies Popup in WordPress for GDPR/CCPA
• Best WordPress GDPR Plugins to Improve Compliance
• How to Clear Your Browser Cache in All Major Browsers (Fast Way)
• How to Manage and Delete Transients in WordPress (The Easy Way)

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