How to Browse Incognito on Internet Explorer

Most modern browsers have a private browsing mode inspired by Google Chrome’s “Incognito Mode”. On Internet Explorer, the private browsing mode is often called “InPrivate Browsing”. Any web surfing in this mode will not be recorded on the computer. You can use InPrivate Browsing on both the Desktop and Metro interfaces of Internet Explorer.

Table of Contents

Internet Explorer (Desktop)

If you’re using a Surface or Windows tablet, see the next section.

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Open Internet Explorer. To use InPrivate Browsing (Incognito), you need Internet Explorer 8 or later.

If you are using Windows 7 or later, your version should suffice.
To see the current version, click the gear button or the Help menu and select “About Internet Explorer”. Click here to see more about how to update your browser.

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Click the gear button or the Tops menu and select “InPrivate Browsing”. If you don’t see it, press the Alt button and then click on the Tops menu that is displayed. A new InPrivate window will appear.

You can also press Ctrl + Shift + P. ^{[1] X Research Sources}

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Browse privately in a new window. The InPrivate window will not record browsing history or website data. All new tabs created in this window will also be made private. This does not protect you from your superiors or anyone who might be able to track your web activity over the network.

Previous browsing times in the regular window are still recorded.

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Set Internet Explorer to always open in InPrivate Browsing mode. If you regularly use InPrivate Browsing, you can set the browser to always start in this mode for your convenience. ^{[2] X Research Source}

Right-click the Internet Explorer shortcut and select “Properties”.
Find the “Target” field in the Shortcut tab.
Add -private to the end of the Target line. Make sure you don’t omit a space at the end of the target line and the - .
Click Apply to save the changes. Internet Explorer will start in InPrivate Browsing mode each time you use that shortcut.

Internet Explorer (Metro)

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Open Internet Explorer. This method is for the Metro version of Internet Explorer 11 built into Windows 8.

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Tap the “Tabs” button at the bottom of the screen, to the right of the address bar. The Tabs pane will open. ^{[3] X Research Sources}

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Click the “…” button at the top of the Tabs pane and select “New InPrivate Tab”. A new incognito tab will open in the browser.

Warning

InPrivate Browsing does not make your online activity anonymous or discreet. Your ISP (network service provider), supervisor and/or network administrator still has all your activity logs.

Steps

Internet Explorer (Desktop)

Internet Explorer (Metro)

Warning

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