I'll answer what I think is your second question. You will remove a lot of files with Clear recent history (ctl+shft+del) by selecting only Offline website data.

You can use the "Places Database" -> "Verify Integrity" button on the "Help -> More Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page to get info about the tables in places.sqlite.

What kind of websites do you want to remove ? Do you only want to clear older visits or visits from specific domains?

You can sort the history sidebar by clicking the View button and only remove specific domains. In the Library you can sort a specific history folder or type a space in the search bar to get all results. I regularly clear older history for the SUMO domain and remove older history.

Sorry Terry, I already had "[X} Offline website data" as one of the Clear History settings when Firefox closes. Also Clear cache and cookies on close. So that should not have bulked up with daily and oftener browser closures.

The kinds of websites I don't see without specific searches are ones that are strictly URLs. The URLs include terms like the ones I listed in my question as examples. I found out about them by accident when I mistyped a history search. But they do not show up in the default view of date / site Here's one: https://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001ae8136iJcanglogd8EYbbmef_j25qIjzXEVMgwl0EuUSex2CoBtYUkO8azdXiDxW2b1rb5yIxIAxMfblEY3bTc-XHkSTzBLRbYfdMzYXzsnspzNHC_Lr4QuVRaQRtVG7XskaiwoqABJjnhdlCYnA8ETPIEWwPPJs4A7z9g2ua7aw9Z6bwZJN9xr46rsFOG_rojaXG6S26V1G6eTUSPSekQ==&c=4lEVRfhG9iC5_ryx1KW3fnSchUiGoX3Lij0_BsR9AmY7Yf8yO7N_MA==&ch=pMrLOTfFkkoyrLrY6c7MSz6qwaLotrRz-p07Ep_hz73iUs2oSpWkuQ==

I had 14 "r20.rs6.net" URLs in History when I checked just now. Deleted them after copying one for this example.

I started keeping a list of link bits to search History to weed out, but considering how much places.sqilite has bulked up, there must be a lot more bits I don't know to search for. View by site lists named URLs. It doesn't show me "ablink" "click" "nextd" "spark" "r20" either. I still have to search to get them.

Co-rel: I don't want to delete domains or older entries per se, That throws the baby out with the bath water. I just need to weed out "trash" URLs like the example. Some of those are recent, some are older. But I never see them without a search.

You can delete older history with extensions like History Cleaner.

Sorry zerorknight, I don't want to delete older history. I need to be able to prune my history like a bonsai. The trash sites can occur as recently as this week, or I find another bit that occurs weekly for the past year. So I could really use something that shows me everything in there without corrupting places.sqlite.

How do I open a History library? That sounds less drastic than trying to open places.sqlite.

The Library is a popup window which is used for Show All History (Ctrl+Shift+H), Show All Bookmarks (Ctrl+Shift+B) and Show All Downloads (Ctrl+J).

You can add useful columns like "Last Visited" and search across the date ranges using the tiny box at the upper right.

Note that Firefox only shows the latest visit, so if you go to the same URL daily, it won't be listed for previous dates. If you need a comprehensive history including previous visits, you can use an external program like the following to extract a list: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/mozilla_history_view.html. But that is just for viewing, not for editing as far as I know.

Darn. The library only shows the same named URL sites that Ctrl+H shows. Only with more sorting and column width.

For example, I just ran two "bits" searches in both Ctrl-H and Ctrl+shift+H. Since I'd searched and deleted older results a couple days ago, the results today are recent.

"nl." search results list has 40 "nl.nytimes.com/f/newsletter/..." that do not show in the View by Date and Site. That only lists 16 named sites (page names) grouped under www.nytimes.com for today. Named-pages only in a Site only view, grouped under www.nytimes.com For example: The Titan Submersible Passengers' Final Hours - The New York Times"

No View groups for nyt.et.e.sparkpost or for nl.nytimes.com.

"spark" search results list has 40 "nyt.et.e.sparkpost.com/f/newsletter/..." that don't appear in Ctrl+H or Ctrl+shift+H.

The two sets are recent because I searched for and deleted them (along with other bits search results) a couple days ago.

Thank you anyway.