Places.sqlite
The file "places.sqlite" stores the annotations, bookmarks, favorite icons, input history, keywords, and browsing history (a record of visited pages).
Places.sqlite is used in Firefox 3.0 instead of the older bookmarks.html and history.dat files (the older file are left in the profile folder for backward compatibility). Starting in SeaMonkey 2, places.sqlite is used to store browsing history (but not bookmarks). [1]
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
An ERD Diagram is available.