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How to recover firefox deleted history?

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  • Last reply by Dropa

sarcasmattop
sarcasmattop
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How can I recover the history that has been deleted from firefox? Already there is an article from 2020 which says to find index.dat file but there is no .dat file that i can find. I am looking for the file in the following location: AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\83ctti6r.default-release\cache2 and that location is the only one with a file named index but it is without .dat extension. If that is supposed to be the file that I am to use then which .dat file reader do I use to open it and recover the history.

How can I recover the history that has been deleted from firefox? Already there is an article from 2020 which says to find index.dat file but there is no .dat file that i can find. I am looking for the file in the following location: AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\83ctti6r.default-release\cache2 and that location is the only one with a file named index but it is without .dat extension. If that is supposed to be the file that I am to use then which .dat file reader do I use to open it and recover the history.
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cor-el
cor-el
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No, that cache2 folder is the folder used for the disk cache, see the about:cache page for more detail. Firefox stores the history along with the bookmarks in a SQLite database named places.sqlite, so no index file is used.

Firefox uses two locations in the hidden "AppData" location for the Firefox profile folder. One location in "AppDataRoaming" for personal data like bookmarks and logins and another location in "AppDataLocal" for temporary files like the disk cache, so make sure to look in the correct location.

Primary location used for the main profile that keeps your personal data (Root Directory on about:profiles).

  • bookmarks and history: places.sqlite
  • favicons: favicons.sqlite
  • bookmark backups: compressed .jsonlz4 JSON backups in the bookmarkbackups folder
  • cookies.sqlite for the Cookies
  • formhistory.sqlite for saved autocomplete Form Data
  • logins.json (encrypted logins) and key4.db (encryption key/primary password) for logins saved in the Password Manager
  • cert9.db for certificates stored in the Certificate Manager
  • persdict.dat for words added to the spell checker dictionary
  • permissions.sqlite for Permissions and possibly content-prefs.sqlite for other website specific data (Site Preferences)
  • sessionstore.jsonlz4 for open tabs and pinned tabs (see also the sessionstore-backups folder)
cor-el
cor-el
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To recover deleted history, you need a backup copy of places.sqlite that still has this history.

sarcasmattop
sarcasmattop Question owner
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cor-el said
To recover deleted history, you need a backup copy of places.sqlite that still has this history.


If i restore a previous version of the places.sqlite file then the history would be restored in the browser as well?

Modified by sarcasmattop

Dropa
Dropa
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sarcasmattop said

cor-el said
To recover deleted history, you need a backup copy of places.sqlite that still has this history.


If i restore a previous version of the places.sqlite file then the history would be restored in the browser as well?

This depends on how long back the recovery file was last saved.