# Should rails sessions remain after the browser has closed?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/should-rails-sessions-remain-after-the-browser-has-closed/75920>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [November 14, 2006, 11:58am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/should-rails-sessions-remain-after-the-browser-has-closed/75920 "2006-11-14T11:58:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![greg](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/71c47a/32.png) [@greg](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/greg)\
**Post date:** [November 14, 2006, 11:58am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/should-rails-sessions-remain-after-the-browser-has-closed/75920/1 "2006-11-14T11:58:17Z")

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Hi,

Just double checking - should rails sessions remain after the browser  
has  
closed???

I’m running active record sessions (i.e. persisted to database via  
active  
record), however I note that closing the browser and re-opening builds  
up  
multiple sessions in the database table. Is this expected behavior for  
a  
session?

Tks

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**Author:** ![greg](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/71c47a/32.png) [@greg](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/greg)\
**Post date:** [November 14, 2006, 3:32pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/should-rails-sessions-remain-after-the-browser-has-closed/75920/2 "2006-11-14T15:32:42Z")

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Yes - your webserver doesn’t (and realistically cannot) know if the user  
has closed their browser. The cookie which enabled them to get at that  
session however has gone away, and so you get a new session, as  
expected.  
This does mean that session build up over time, most people have some  
form of cron jobs that clears out their old sessions.

Fred

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![greg](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/71c47a/32.png) [@greg](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/greg)\
**Post date:** [November 14, 2006, 5:20pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/should-rails-sessions-remain-after-the-browser-has-closed/75920/3 "2006-11-14T17:20:57Z")

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On 11/14/06, Greg H. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> Tks
> 
> >

Greg,

This is normal behavior. You need to cleanup these sessions yourself  
which can easily be done with rake during development (rake  
db:sessions:clear) or a cron job in production  
([http://depixelate.com/2006/11/10/quick-tip-flexible-session-sweeping](http://depixelate.com/2006/11/10/quick-tip-flexible-session-sweeping)).

Hope this helps.

–  
Zack C.  
[http://depixelate.com](http://depixelate.com)