Cookies.sqlite

The file cookies.sqlite in the user's profile directory is used to store cookies between sessions. It is in this format:

   CREATE TABLE moz_cookies 
       (id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, 
        name TEXT, 
        value TEXT, 
        host TEXT, 
        path TEXT,
        expiry INTEGER, 
        lastAccessed INTEGER, 
        isSecure INTEGER, 
        isHttpOnly INTEGER);

It can be read from the command line using SQLite. For example, here is a Unix Bourne shell script which converts cookies.sqlite to the older cookies.txt format that can be used with tools like wget and curl.

   #!/bin/sh -e
   # extract_cookies.sh:
   #
   # Convert from Firefox's cookies.sqlite format to Netscape cookies,
   # which can then be used by wget and curl. (Why don't wget and curl
   # just use libsqlite if it's installed?)
   
   # USAGE:
   #
   # $ extract_cookies.sh > /tmp/cookies.txt
   # or
   # $ extract_cookies.sh ~/.mozilla/firefox/*default*/cookies.sqlite > /tmp/cookies.txt
   
   # USING WITH WGET:
   # $ wget --load-cookies=/tmp/cookies.txt http://mysite.com
   
   # USING WITH CURL:
   # $ curl --cookie /tmp/cookies.txt http://mysite.com
   
   # Note: If you do not specify an SQLite filename, this script will
   # intelligently find it for you.
   #
   # A) Usually it will check all profiles under ~/.mozilla/firefox/ and
   # use the cookies.sqlite that was updated most recently.
   #
   # B) If you've redirected stdin (with < or |) , then that will be used.
   
   
   # HISTORY: I believe this is circa 2010 from:
   # http://slacy.com/blog/2010/02/using-cookies-sqlite-in-wget-or-curl/
   # However, that site is down now.
   
   # Cleaned up by Hackerb9 (2017) to be more robust and require less typing.
   
   
   cleanup() {
       rm -f $TMPFILE
       exit 0
   }
   trap cleanup  EXIT INT QUIT TERM
   
   
   if [ "$#" -ge 1 ]; then
       SQLFILE="$1"
   else
       if tty -s; then
       SQLFILE=$(ls -t ~/.mozilla/firefox/*/cookies.sqlite | head -1)
       else
       SQLFILE="-"             # Will use 'cat' below to read stdin
       fi
   fi
       
   if [ "$SQLFILE" != "-" -a ! -r "$SQLFILE" ]; then
       echo "Error. File $SQLFILE is not readable." >&2
       exit 1
   fi
   
   # We have to copy cookies.sqlite, because FireFox has a lock on it
   TMPFILE=`mktemp /tmp/cookies.sqlite.XXXXXXXXXX`
   cat "$SQLFILE" >> $TMPFILE
   
   
   # This is the format of the sqlite database:
   # CREATE TABLE moz_cookies 
   #     (id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, name TEXT, value TEXT, host TEXT, path TEXT, 
   #      expiry INTEGER, lastAccessed INTEGER, isSecure INTEGER, isHttpOnly INTEGER);
   
   echo "# Netscape HTTP Cookie File"
   sqlite3 -separator $'\t' $TMPFILE <<- EOF
       .mode tabs
       .header off
       select host,
       case substr(host,1,1)='.' when 0 then 'FALSE' else 'TRUE' end,
       path,
       case isSecure when 0 then 'FALSE' else 'TRUE' end,
       expiry,
       name,
       value
       from moz_cookies;
   EOF
   
   cleanup

See also

• Cookies
• RSS cookies - Thunderbird
• Websites report cookies are disabled when they're not
• Multiple cookies files created