How to use cookies in NodeJS

Handling cookies is one of the most frustrating thing to waste time on figuring out what combinations of all the settings for a cookie works . So Here is a simple solution to save a lot of time to build what is actually important rather than getting CORS by the server.

How to use cookies in NodeJS

First let us install all our dependency using npm

npm install express cors cookie-parser

Import all the libraries and initialize express

const express = require('express')
const cors = require('cors')
const cookieParser = require('cookie-parser')

const app = express()

Intialize all the middlewares

app.use(express.urlencoded({ extended: true }))
app.use(express.json())

app.use(cors({
	origin:'http://localhost:3000', // wherever your frontend is running
	credentials:true // tell the server to accepts cookies coming from client side
}))

app.use(cookieParser())

Create a route to send cookies from server

app.get("/",(req,res)=>{

	res.cookie("name","Abhishek",{
			maxAge:1000*60,  // how long the cookie should stay on clients browser
			secure: 'false', // if you are using http use secure:'false' the false is in string
			sameSite:'none', // if the backend and frontend are running on different locations 
			httpOnly:'true' // if you want that the cookie cannot be access by using document.cookie on client side
		})
		res.sendStatus(200)
	})

app.get("/cookie",(req,res)=>{
	console.log(req.cookies)
	res.sendStatus(200)
})

start the server

app.listen(8000, () => console.log("Server Is Online at port 8000"))

Here is the entire server.js file

const express = require('express')
const cors = require('cors')
const cookieParser = require('cookie-parser')

const app = express()

app.use(express.urlencoded({ extended: true }))
app.use(express.json())

app.use(cors({
	origin:'http://127.0.0.1:3000',
credentials:true
}))

app.use(cookieParser())


app.get("/",(req,res)=>{

res.cookie("name","Abhishek",{
	maxAge:1000*60,
	secure: 'false',
	sameSite:'none',
	httpOnly:'true'
})
res.sendStatus(200)
})

app.get("/cookie",(req,res)=>{
	console.log(req.cookies)
res.sendStatus(200)
})


app.listen(8000, () => {
	console.log("Server Is Online at port 8000")
})

Client side

Send request from the client side

use credentials:’include’ while using fetch and withcredentials:true while using axios

function getCookie(){
	fetch("http://localhost:8000",{
		credentials: 'include' // tells the browser to do both accept and send cookie 
	})
	.then(res => console.log(res.status))
}

function sendCookie(){
	fetch("http://localhost:8000/cookie",{
		credentials:'include'  // tells the browser to do both accept and send cookie 
	})
	.then(res => console.log(res.status))
}

Written on August 1, 2021