Places.sqlite
The file "places.sqlite" stores the annotations, bookmarks, favourite icons, input history, keywords, browsing history (a record of visited pages) in Firefox 3.
Editing
You can edit this file using [sqlite], however, you must close Firefox first in order to get a lock on the file. NOTE: Firefox opens the places.sqlite with a lock that prevents the user from updating the file when firefox is open. More information on sqlite locking can be found at [SQLLite Locking]
You can selectively edit or delete records using sql syntax. For example, to delete records of places you have visited, you can issue the following statement:
sqlite3 places.sqlite "delete from moz_places where url like '%REPLACE_ME%';"
where REPLACE_ME is the text in the URL you wish to delete.
To selectively deleted your input history you can use the following statement:
sqlite3 places.sqlite "delete from moz_inputhistory where input like '%REPLACE_ME%';"
Moving
This file can be moved to a different profile.
Deleting
If you suspect that the file is corrupted, deleting "places.sqlite" will delete your browsing history, and a new, empty file will be created automatically.
Technical Information
The places.sqlite includes a number of tables as follows:
- moz_anno_attributes - Annotation Attributes
- moz_annos - Annotations
- moz_bookmarks - Bookmarks
- moz_bookmarks_roots - Bookmark roots i.e. places, menu, toolbar, tags, unfiled
- moz_favicons - Favourite icons - including URL of icon
- moz_historyvisits - A history of the number of times a site has been visited
- moz_inputhistory - A history of URLS typed by the user
- moz_items_annos - Item annotations
- moz_keywords - Keywords
- moz_places - Places/Sites visited - referenced by moz_historyvisits