As part of Safari's privacy push, it will delete a site's local storage, like Indexed DB, after seven days of inactivity, hamstringing Safari's offline web apps
time to ditch Chrome? Sleyhane / New board topics in Shopify Community : Safari 13.1 and embedded apps John Gruber / Daring Fireball : Safari Now Has Full Third-Party Cookie Blocking Eli Blumenthal / CNET : Apple updates Safari on iOS and Mac to block third-party cookies J. Fergus / Input : Apple laps Google and fully blocks third-party cookies in Safari Tara Seals / Threatpost : Apple Safari Blocks Ad-Targeting Cookie Support Roger Montti / Search Engine Journal : Safari Announces Full 3rd Party Cookie Blocking Stephen Warwick / iMore : Apple beefs up web security and privacy in iOS 13.4 Nick Statt / The Verge : Apple updates Safari to fully block third-party cookies by default, months after Google said it would do the same in Chrome by 2022 Tweets: @lucid00 : • Every other browser vendor: We're halting updates to give devs the ability to just focus on keeping things running during this COVID-19 outbreak. • Apple: We went ahead and made breaking changes to Safari. Test them now on your premium priced iOS, iPad OS or macOS device. https://twitter.com/... Eric Florenzano / @ericflo : To: Web Apps From: Apple Subject: Drop Dead https://andregarzia.com/... Alex Russell / @slightlylate : @davatron5000 @ericlaw A reasonable middle ground, given that iOS already puts PWAs into a separate storage container, would be to exempt those installed apps from this. Thoughts, @johnwilander? Jeremy Karlsson / @enjikaka : @johnwilander What about web applications not added to home screen (i.e. web apps on macOS). Weird if our users at @TIDAL go on vacation and come back to their streaming settings being reset. Aral Balkan / @aral : Just updated my blog post on Apple killing Offline Web Apps with questions after they silently updated their blog post. I'm now confused and wondering if they thought this out at all. https://ar.al/... @flaviocopes : Looks like Apple is literally trying to kill the ability to create Web Apps storage on mobile Andr Staltz / @andrestaltz : Freedom in software is only possible if the operating system also protects the user's freedom. Another unfortunate decision by Apple: https://twitter.com/... @soapdog : 😒🗯 #Apple is hurting the #Web again by delivering a crippling blow to #PWAs. https://andregarzia.com/... Eniko / @enichan : web is dead pass it on https://twitter.com/... Morgan McGuire / @casualeffects : Oh, no! localStorage is the only way to save users a ton of hassle. Browsers synchronizing it over the cloud has been fantastic and wiping it is completely pointless for security & privacy. It sounds like a grab to force paid apps over web apps. https://twitter.com/... Jestem Krliczkiem / @karlicoss : Wow. I really hate these trends. > WebKit will delete all local storage after 7 days - https://ar.al/... Georg / @snorpey : from the webkit update notes: third party cookies will be blocked automatically: good. writable storage will expire after 7 days: this is really bad for web apps. https://ar.al/... Dave Rupert / @davatron5000 : Need to read up a it more, but Apple's move here to wipe localStorage, IndexedDB, and Service Workers after 7 days seems aggressive and effectively neuters PWAs (as well as SPAs?). I support third-party cookie blocking, but seems like webapps are getting kneecap'd. https://twitter.com/... John Bergmayer / @bergmayer : Amazing the number of developers who think “Oh yeah, of course every web page you visit should be a full-fledged app that has permanent storage on your computer” https://ar.al/... Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life : Apple's WebKit will now block 3rd party cookies and delete offline storage after 7 days if you don't visit the site in a week. This basically kills offline web apps and makes me wonder why if it's for privacy the same doesn't happen for iOS apps? 🤔 https://ar.al/... Dmitry Chestnykh / @dchest : Whoa, Safari is killing browser local storage: it will erase localStorage and IndexedDB after 7 days of inactivity https://webkit.org/... Mathieu Roche / @rochemathieu : Safari continues its crusade against tracking, denying publishers' ability to fund free access to content and services with ads. Irrespective of the relationship between publishers and their audiences. Abuse of power anyone?! @adexchanger @OSchiffey https://www.adexchanger.com/ ... @1blockerapp : Safari now fully blocks third-party cookies by default. This is a significant improvement for privacy since it disables login fingerprinting and brings other additional benefits. https://webkit.org/... Aral Balkan / @aral : So Apple just threw the baby out with the bathwater and killed offline web apps (unless you're cool with all your data being deleted if you don't use an app for a week). You'd almost think they had an App Store to promote or something. https://webkit.org/... 🤦♂️ Irenes / @ireneista : Wow. Cheers! A great win for privacy. “Full third-party cookie blocking makes sure there's no ITP state that can be detected through cookie blocking behavior. We'd like to **again thank Google** for initiating this analysis through their report.” https://webkit.org/... Jason Kint / @jason_kint : Love how Apple Safari thanks Google team for helping them close off a loophole in the same story where we also learn they're dusting Chrome on browser privacy by more than two years. Hat tip. https://www.theverge.com/... Zsolt Benke / @zsbenke : @rmondello So, nobody fixed this bug that I reported about Twitter's zoom level problem in Safari... It worked fine in 10.15.3, now tweets are collapsed in 10.15.4. https://twitter.com/... Ricky Mondello / @rmondello : Safari 13.1 shipped for iOS and macOS today with full third-party cookie blocking. It's a big, positive change for privacy on a web. It was previewed for months in Safari Technology Preview and OS betas to help ensure it's a non-disruptive change. https://webkit.org/... @brendaneich : @johnwilander Good update. I would not count a few exceptions as us not “paving the way” by blocking almost all 3p cookies for years, though :-P. Multiple paving jobs along the longer road. Congrats anyway. https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
This lands alongside Safari's full default blocking of third-party cookies, announced in the same update cycle — two privacy moves that together make Safari the most aggressive mainstream browser on tracking. It also fits a longer arc: months later Apple would refuse to implement 16 new Web APIs over fingerprinting concerns, and critics have since catalogued how Safari's slow feature adoption and unilateral refusals harm the open web.
The seven-day storage deletion is an early data point in what became a running conflict between Apple and web-app developers — a tension that resurfaced years later when PWAs briefly stopped working as standalone apps in iOS 17.4 betas during the EU DMA transition, before Apple reversed course under pressure.
First-order effects
- Developers of offline-capable web apps and PWAs lose persistent local storage (IndexedDB, service workers) for any Safari user inactive for seven days, breaking saved state and offline functionality.
Second-order effects
- Developers weighing web versus native get another reason to ship App Store apps instead, reinforcing the very distribution channel Apple controls — while Chrome's more permissive storage model becomes the de facto target for web app development.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — privacy justifying unilateral platform constraints, later challenged by regulators as with the DMA-driven PWA reversal — browser capability decisions shift from standards bodies toward Apple alone and, increasingly, toward legal frameworks.
The trend: Apple is using privacy as the rationale for unilaterally narrowing what the web can do on its platforms, a stance now colliding with EU regulation.