How to Reset Cookie Clicker (Start Over Guide)

Cookie Clicker is famously hard to leave alone. Once you’re a few thousand cookies in, the temptation to restart fresh and play the whole arc again is real — and Julien “Orteil” Thiennot built three different reset paths into the game for exactly that reason. How to reset Cookie Clicker depends on what kind of fresh start you want. A full wipe takes ten seconds. A prestige reset (which keeps your accumulated prestige points) is the main progression mechanic. A nuclear-option hard reset clears even your settings.

The basic reset — Options menu

The fastest way to fully reset Cookie Clicker is through the in-game Options menu:

1. Click the Options button in the top menu bar.
2. Scroll down to the “Wipe save” button (it’s near the bottom, marked with a warning).
3. Click Wipe save.
4. The game asks you to type a confirmation phrase — this is a safety check.
5. Type the phrase and confirm.

This wipes your cookies, buildings, upgrades, achievements, prestige points, and ascension history. The game restarts as if you’d just opened it for the first time. Your settings (particles, numbers, sound) are preserved.

Export your save first

Before any reset, the Options menu also has an “Export save” button. Click it, and the game shows you a long encoded string representing your entire save state. Copy the string and paste it somewhere safe — a text file, a note app, anywhere you can retrieve it later.

If you regret the reset, you can re-import the save through “Import save” in the same menu. This restores everything exactly as it was. Many players export periodically as a backup, even if they’re not planning to reset.

Prestige (ascension) — the intended reset path

Cookie Clicker has a built-in progression reset called Ascension or Prestige. You can ascend through the Legacy menu (the cookie-with-wings icon) once you’ve baked enough cookies in the current run. Ascending wipes your buildings, upgrades, and run progress, but you get to keep all your prestige points and ascension upgrades.

This is the intended way to “reset” the game while still feeling progression. Prestige points grant permanent bonuses across all future runs. After enough ascensions, you start the game with permanent buffs that make subsequent runs faster.

For deep prestige strategy and ascension timing, see our Cookie Clicker late-game guide.

When to use each reset

The three reset paths serve different purposes:

• Wipe save: You want a completely fresh start. New player experience, no permanent bonuses, no history. Use this if you want to play the whole arc from scratch.
• Prestige: You want to restart your run but keep the meta-progression. This is the normal in-game mechanic and how Cookie Clicker is intended to be played long-term.
• Hard reset (clear site data): You want to truly start over including settings, with no trace of previous play. Useful if you’re handing the game to a new player on your computer.

The hard reset — clearing site data

If the Options menu wipe isn’t enough — say you want to clear your settings as well, or there’s some corrupted state — you can perform a hard reset by clearing all site data for the Cookie Clicker domain. The steps vary slightly by browser:

In Chrome:

1. Click the lock icon next to the URL.
2. Choose “Cookies and site data” or “Site settings”.
3. Click “Clear data” or “Remove” for orteil.dashnet.org (or wherever you play).
4. Reload the page.

In Firefox:

1. Click the shield/lock icon next to the URL.
2. Choose “Clear cookies and site data”.
3. Confirm the clear.
4. Reload the page.

This wipes localStorage, cookies, IndexedDB entries, and any cached service worker data for the site. The game starts as if you’d never visited it. Settings, save data, achievements — all gone.

Partial resets — the underused options

Cookie Clicker has a few partial reset mechanisms that don’t fully wipe you:

• Sell all buildings: You lose your CPS but keep your cookies. Use this to refund a bad build order.
• Refund upgrades: A few upgrades can be undone through specific mechanics, but most are permanent within a run.
• Garden reset: The Farm building’s garden can be wiped without affecting the rest of the game.
• Stock market reset: The Bank’s stock market can be liquidated and restarted.

These are useful when you’ve made a specific mistake (planted the wrong seeds, sold the wrong stock) without wanting to lose your whole run. They’re partial resets, not full ones.

Why people reset

There are a few common reasons players choose to reset Cookie Clicker:

• Bad save state: A mod conflict, an autoclicker bug, or some other glitch produced numbers that don’t feel earned.
• New player experience: Some players reset specifically to replay the early-game arc, which has a different feel from the late game.
• Mod testing: Mod developers reset to test their work against a fresh save.
• Account sharing: Multiple people playing on the same computer might want to take turns with fresh starts.

The most common reason is just the desire to play through the early game again. Cookie Clicker’s first few hours have a distinct feel — the building unlocks come fast, every upgrade matters, the cookie counter keeps surprising you. Late-game play is mostly idle waiting punctuated by occasional decisions. A reset puts you back in the early-game rhythm.

Backing up before resetting — best practice

Always export your save before any reset operation. The export string is plain text — paste it into a note file, an email to yourself, a cloud document, anywhere you’ll find it later. If you change your mind, you can import the string and restore the exact state.

The export/import functionality is one of Cookie Clicker’s most user-friendly features. The game treats your save data as portable in a way few browser games do. Use that portability — there’s no downside to keeping backups, and there’s significant downside to losing years of play to an accidental wipe.

What doesn’t reset

A few things stay even after a Wipe save:

• Your browser’s localStorage allocation for the site (the data is wiped but the slot remains).
• Browser-side preferences that aren’t part of the game save (font size, zoom level).
• Any browser extensions or mods you have installed (these run separately).

If you want a truly fresh state — no extensions, no mods, no residual browser context — you’d need to use a different browser or a fresh user profile. For most purposes, the in-game Wipe save is enough.

Can you undo a reset?

If you exported your save before resetting, yes — re-import the string and your old state is back exactly as it was. If you didn’t export, no. The Wipe save action is permanent.

This is why the export step matters. Cookie Clicker doesn’t auto-backup before a reset, and there’s no recovery mechanism for un-exported saves. The export is your only safety net.

The Cookie Clicker history of save formats

The save string format has evolved across Cookie Clicker’s twelve-year lifespan. Old save strings from very early versions of the game (2013-2014) aren’t always compatible with the current version. The game generally handles migration gracefully — if you import an old save, the engine upgrades it to the current format — but corner cases exist.

For more on Cookie Clicker’s development history and version progression, the Wikipedia entry on Cookie Clicker covers the major version changes.

Frequently asked questions

How do I reset Cookie Clicker?

Open the Options menu, scroll to the bottom, and click “Wipe save”. The game asks for a confirmation phrase. Type it and confirm. This wipes all progress, achievements, and prestige history. Export your save first if you want a backup.

What’s the difference between Wipe Save and Ascend?

Wipe Save erases everything — cookies, buildings, achievements, prestige points, ascensions. Ascend (Prestige) resets your current run but keeps your prestige points and ascension upgrades, which grant permanent bonuses in future runs. Ascend is the intended in-game progression reset.

Can I undo a Cookie Clicker reset?

Only if you exported your save before resetting. The export button (Options menu) creates a long string you can copy somewhere safe. Re-importing it restores your exact state. Without a backup, the reset is permanent.

How do I do a hard reset of Cookie Clicker?

Clear all site data for the Cookie Clicker domain through your browser’s site-settings menu. This wipes localStorage, cookies, and any cached data — a true fresh start including settings.

Will resetting Cookie Clicker delete my achievements?

Yes. Wipe Save deletes all achievements along with everything else. Ascending (prestige) keeps your achievements. If you only want to lose your run progress, ascend instead of wiping.

The takeaway

Resetting Cookie Clicker is a deliberate, well-supported feature. Use Wipe Save for a clean start, Ascend for the intended progression reset, and clear site data only if you need a truly fresh state. Export your save first, every time, no exceptions. For a different idle-resistant browser game where reset isn’t really a concept, the Chrome Dino game at the top of this page is the opposite design — no save state to wipe, every run is fresh by default.

Related: What Is a Clicker Game? The Cookie Clicker Effect · Cookie Clicker Speedrun Categories Explained · The Cookie Clicker Grandma Lore Explained