Ubuntu – view Firefox history with the terminal

firefox

Is there a command to show Firefox history from the Terminal ?

without the need to Enter Firefox history graphically .

Best Answer

This page describes what user-specific information is stored by Firefox and where. (And this is what Mozilla's help has to say on viewing .sqlite files.)

It lists three types of history:

  • Bookmarks and Browsing History: The places.sqlite file contains all your Firefox bookmarks and the list of all the websites you’ve visited ...

  • Autocomplete history: The formhistory.sqlite file remembers what you have searched for in the Firefox search bar and what information you’ve entered into forms on websites ...

  • Download history: The downloads.sqlite file remembers what you have downloaded. ...

As you can see, all three histories are not simple text files but database files in sqlite format.

One way to view .sqlite files is by using sqlite3 (sudo apt-get install sqlite3).

Open a terminal and cd to the folder containing what you want to view. In my case, that is ~/.mozilla/firefox/w4wcp85s.default.

ls *.sqlite lists the sqlite files.

Run sqlite3 places.sqlite (if places.sqlite is what you want to view). You'll see something like this:

$ cd ~/.mozilla/firefox/w4wcp85s.default 
$ sqlite3 places.sqlite
SQLite version 3.7.17 2013-05-20 00:56:22
Enter ".help" for instructions
Enter SQL statements terminated with a ";"
sqlite>

Now, there are several things you can do. (Use Ctrl+D to exit sqlite3).

For example, typing .tables and pressing Enter gives me:

sqlite> .tables
moz_anno_attributes  moz_favicons         moz_items_annos    
moz_annos            moz_historyvisits    moz_keywords       
moz_bookmarks        moz_hosts            moz_places         
moz_bookmarks_roots  moz_inputhistory   
sqlite>

To view the contents, type SELECT * FROM table_name; (where table_nameis the name of the table you wish to view; note the ;) and press Enter. It's quite likely that the output won't be understandable but that is not the fault of sqlite3.

To show you an example that does provide decent output, look at stylish.sqlite (if you use the Stylish extension):

$ ~/.mozilla/firefox/w4wcp85s.default $ sqlite3 stylish.sqlite
SQLite version 3.7.17 2013-05-20 00:56:22
Enter ".help" for instructions
Enter SQL statements terminated with a ";"
sqlite> .tables
style_meta  styles    
sqlite> SELECT * FROM styles;
6||||YouTube|/* AGENT_SHEET */ 
/* ▓▓ NIGHTSHIFT - eye care:                                 ▓▓
   ▓▓_http://userstyles.org/styles/18192/nightshift-eye-care_▓▓ */

@namespace url(http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml);
@-moz-document regexp("https?://www.youtube.com/.*")  {
body,html {min-height: 100%!important; }
html, body{background-color:#111!important}

You can do everything in just one non-interactive command if you know exactly what you want. Read The sqlite3 command line tool for more on sqlite3.

$ sqlite3 stylish.sqlite "SELECT * FROM styles;" > ~/Desktop/filename.txt

will do the needful in the example given and tee will let you see the output on screen as well:

$ sqlite3 stylish.sqlite "SELECT * FROM styles;" | tee ~/Desktop/filename.txt

(Thanks due here.)

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