Avatar for Username

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

Recalling a page from History erases the old history date. Any way to retain that older history entry along with the current one?

  • 2 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 3 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

giarcea@yahoo.com
giarcea@yahoo.com
more options

Example. I visited the Wikipedia ten days ago to learn about e.g. the Lorentz force. Today I want to recall, and return to, the same page. I open History on Firefox, select the past (i.e. current) month, and scroll down until I see the Wikipedia entry. If I double click on it, the remembered page will display under the current browser tab. However, that old history entry disappears! Only the new present day history entry for that web page now exists. It is often useful to recall what sequence of web pages was visited in the past, and what pages were visited successively around some past time. If the old history could be retained, that would be useful. Is there a setting that will ensure this behavior?

Example. I visited the Wikipedia ten days ago to learn about e.g. the Lorentz force. Today I want to recall, and return to, the same page. I open History on Firefox, select the past (i.e. current) month, and scroll down until I see the Wikipedia entry. If I double click on it, the remembered page will display under the current browser tab. However, that old history entry disappears! Only the new present day history entry for that web page now exists. It is often useful to recall what sequence of web pages was visited in the past, and what pages were visited successively around some past time. If the old history could be retained, that would be useful. Is there a setting that will ensure this behavior?

All Replies (2)

jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
  • Top 25 Contributor
more options

I don't think there is any built-in way to do this. The Library dialog will always show only the latest visit date.

The places.sqlite database certainly retains much more information, but it is inconvenient to query. You can run custom searches using the SQLite Manager extension (screen shot example attached), but this is quite inconvenient.

There might be other add-ons that extend Firefox's history feature. When I searched, most seemed to be for clearing history rather than researching it. You could take a further look, check reviews, and see whether any look useful: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/

P.S. The query in the attached screenshot: 

SELECT url, title, datetime(visit_date/1000000,'unixepoch') AS visited
FROM moz_places INNER JOIN moz_historyvisits ON moz_historyvisits.place_id = moz_places.id
WHERE url LIKE '%jeffersonscher.com/res%'
ORDER BY url ASC, visited DESC

Modified by jscher2000 - Support Volunteer

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

You can create SQLite queries to show specific history entries.

This query shows the visits made in December: 

place:beginTime=1385856000000000&endTime=1388534399000000&sort=4&type=1

All history items: 

place:sort=4&type=1

You can create a bookmark with the location set to the place query.
You need to close and restart Firefox to make the query work properly.