How do I open a .sqlite file to look at my history or cookies?
I want to be able to look at my children's profiles and see their browsing history and cookies details with dates and times. Everything in the profile uses a .sqlite file extension and Windows wont open it. I am using Windows 7.
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You need to open the file places.sqlite in the Firefox Profile Folder of the person that you want to inspect the history from. Using a SQLite Manager extension or a SQLite browser program only gives raw access to the database table. It is not easy to interpret that data. That is why I wrote above that it is much easier to copy the file(s) that you want to inspect to another Firefox profile. Then you only need to launch Firefox with the profile manager and choose that profile and open the Library to get access to the history.
See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_Manager
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Why not just look in the browsing history? In the menus select "History > Show All History". For details of cookies, in the Tools menu select Options, then go to the Privacy panel and click the "Show Cookies" button.
If you want to look at the contents of the sqlite files, there are quite a few sqlite manage/browser tools available, such as the SQLite Database Browser
If you was to update to the current version of Firefox you could use the SQLite Manager add-on in Firefox to view the sqlite files, but that add-on requires at least Firefox 3.6.4
It is easier to create a new profile for yourself and copy the file places.sqlite to that profile if you do not want to start Firefox in your children's profiles. This will avoid losing your own bookmarks.
Question owner
Thanks for the feedback. I did download the sqlite browser, but when i attempt to open the files, there's nothing there. I did update my firefox version so perhaps the files were overwritten clean when I did so? Also, you mention firefox 3.6.4 in your reply, but the latest available version is 3.6.13 - is 3.6.4 a beta version?
Helpful Reply
You need to open the file places.sqlite in the Firefox Profile Folder of the person that you want to inspect the history from. Using a SQLite Manager extension or a SQLite browser program only gives raw access to the database table. It is not easy to interpret that data. That is why I wrote above that it is much easier to copy the file(s) that you want to inspect to another Firefox profile. Then you only need to launch Firefox with the profile manager and choose that profile and open the Library to get access to the history.