Fix: Google Chrome Freezes on Clear Browsing Data

After updating to Google Chrome version 74.0.3729.nnn, many users are facing a problem where the Clear browsing data option doesn’t work. Clicking on the option may hang Chrome, and the cache is not cleared. When you click Clear data, the blue circle will keep spinning round and round for hours. This issue happens regardless of the Chrome browser cache size.

Google seems to have acknowledged the problem and posted a reply at the bugs.chromium.com “User Reports of Unable to Delete Browsing History” page. The reply says:

Fix should be included in canary: 76.0.3789.2 , which is now available. Can folks try it in canary and check if it has been fixed?

Until Google releases a fix for the Clear browsing data issue for the mainstream build, here are some workarounds:

Fix: Google Chrome Freezes on Clear Browsing Data

Turn off all Chrome extensions via chrome://extensions/ , then restart Chrome by typing chrome://restart in the address bar and press ENTER.

After Chrome restarts, try to delete your browsing data. Re-enable the required extensions.

If that doesn’t help, clear the Chrome browser cache manually via File Explorer.

1. Close all instances of Google Chrome.
2. Make sure no chrome.exe instances are showing up in the Task Manager.
3. Open the following folder:

   C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\

4. Rename the folder named Cache to Cache.OLD

5. Restart Google Chrome.
6. Clear the cache.OLD folder later on.

Note that the above example assumes that you’re using the Default profile folder. If you’re using a different profile folder, the folder name would be Profile 1, Profile 2, Profile 3 and so forth.

To find the exact profile folder name/path for your Google Chrome browser profile, type chrome://version in the address bar. In the resulting page, you can see the Profile Path of the current Google Chrome session.

In the above example, you need to rename the cache folder under this folder:

C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Profile 3\

Another option would be to use a third-party cleaner like CCleaner to automatically clear Chrome caches.

RELATED: Reset Chrome Browser to the Default Settings