Persistent cookie

Meaning

A persistent cookie has an Expires or Max-Age attribute, so it survives browser restarts until that time passes or the user clears it. Typical uses are a saved language, a theme choice or a remember-me token. The lifetime is a design decision: a harmless preference can live for months, while a login credential kept for a long time is a long-lived target. Browsers may cap the lifetimes they honour, so design for the cookie to disappear. Enforce expiry on the server too. See also: Session cookie, Max-Age, Expires, the guide "Domain, Path, Expires and Max-Age Explained".