Re: Browser History
- From: Paul <nospam@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 22 Dec 2009 13:38:35 -0500
didee58 wrote:
HI All, Not sure if right spot for this but sure will be told where to post if not. Anyway, in my browser history I inadvertently cleared some entries that I really needed, was some sites I had been looking for and didn't take the time to write down. Is there anyway to get them back or once deleted,always deleted?
Thanks so much. Oh it's windows xp home, firefox.
Try the following. I can't guarantee what you'll find. So treat this
as an experiment.
If you look in your Firefox profile, you'll find a file like "places.sqlite".
There are at least eight files of that type, in the user's profile folder.
There is also one "journal" file, and that would contain recent delta changes
to the largest of the databases. That might be used for recovery purposes
by Firefox. The journal is likely useless for this experiment.
SQLite is a database. Firefox uses it extensively for managing objects
in runs into while browsing. Everything you do in Firefox, will involve
accessing the many databases.
I did a simple experiment. First, I went into Firefox, and found a recent
article I was reading in the History list. Part of the URL contained the
text string "singer.drone".
Next, I used a copy of SQLite3 executable. As far as I know, this one is
consistent with my current version of Firefox 3.0.16. It could be, that
some other version of SQLite is used by a later Firefox. You may have to
do some investigations, to find out what version of SQLite goes with
your version of Firefox. This one seemed to work for me.
http://sqlite.org/sqlite-3_6_20.zip
Inside the ZIP is "sqlite3.exe" . That is a tool for carrying out operations
on SQLite files.
First, I copied my "places.sqlite" file to an empty folder. Don't do these
kinds of operations, on the live files in your Firefox profile! Make a
copy of the file when you're fooling around. First, quit Firefox and wait
until it has fully exited. Then, copy the file to your separate folder.
That way, you'll prevent accidents with the contents of the profile.
In a command prompt window, while you've changed directory to the folder
with sqlite3.exe and places.sqlite in it, run this command. SQLite accepts
commands once it is started. I'm entering these commands in the Command
Prompt or "MSDOS" window.
C:
cd /
cd downloads
cd sqlite3
sqlite3 places.sqlite
sqlite> .output dump.txt
sqlite> .dump
sqlite> .exit
What that does, is converts places.sqlite, into a text file. I chose
"dump.txt" as the file name.
I opened "dump.txt" in Wordpad, and searched for "singer.drone" and I found
it. Now, maybe "places.sqlite" contains your history. I don't know that
for sure. But by using the sqlite3 application, you may be able to look
around and find what you lost.
HTH,
Paul
.
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