That's not true and is a very common misinformation people repeat online. You can save user preferences in cookies without any consent banner, if the cookie isn't used for tracking.

See here[0], page 6:

> As stated in Article 5(3) ePD: ‘This shall not prevent any technical storage or access for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network, or as strictly necessary in order for the provider of an information society service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user to provide the service.’

0: https://www.edpb.europa.eu/system/files/documents/2024-10/ed...

As long as you do not share that info with 3rd party, and the user requested it, you can store via cookies pretty much whatever you want without the need for a consent screen

You're right; I haven't looked into this in detail in some time. You can't save inferred preferences, but can save things that the user has explicitly selected to save.