History.dat

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Revision as of 16:30, 25 July 2006 by AnotherGuest. (talk | contribs) (Use Clear Private Data... to delete. (Valid for Mac??))
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File "history.dat" stores the browsing history: the record of all recently-visited pages. It should not to be confused with session history which controls the Back and Forward buttons, or with download history which stores details of files saved to the hard drive or opened with external programs. The History Sidebar provides an interface to view and edit this file.

By default Firefox stores the browsing history for 9 days. If the history becomes long enough, the file can become large enough to greatly increase the startup time. To reduce the startup time, you can delete all or part of your browsing history, or you can delete the file.

Editing

File "history.dat" is written in a complex format called "Mork". Changes can be made through the History Sidebar, but editing this file manually is not recommended.

Moving

This file can be moved to a different profile.

Deleting

You can delete your history from the main menu (Tools => Clear Private Data...). If you suspect that the file is corrupted, deleting "history.dat" will delete your browsing history, and a new, empty file will be created automatically.

Related bugs


See also