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10+ years of browser history gone

  • 18 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 19 views
  • Last reply by cirom

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firefox browser history disappeared after deleting appdata temp folder. windows 10 pc using ccleaner i "cleaned" the ...\appdata\local\temp\ folder all browser history has disappeared is gone. i have 4 firefox profiles and even the 2 profiles that i have not used in more than 8 months have been wiped clean. unfortunately the appdata branch is not part of any of my backup routines. i had always thought that the FF profiles contained all the browser history and was rather shocked to see all my curated history was gone. fortunately i did not loose the extensive bookmarks. why would browser history be stored only in a temp folder? any ideas??

firefox browser history disappeared after deleting appdata temp folder. windows 10 pc using ccleaner i "cleaned" the ...\appdata\local\temp\ folder all browser history has disappeared is gone. i have 4 firefox profiles and even the 2 profiles that i have not used in more than 8 months have been wiped clean. unfortunately the appdata branch is not part of any of my backup routines. i had always thought that the FF profiles contained all the browser history and was rather shocked to see all my curated history was gone. fortunately i did not loose the extensive bookmarks. why would browser history be stored only in a temp folder? any ideas??

All Replies (18)

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Hey there!

To recover your lost bookmarks please visot the following site for how to odo so:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recover-lost-or-missing-bookmarks

Hope I helped!

Kind regards,

Bithiah

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why would you suggest recover lost bookmarks?

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The browsing history is stored in the same database file as the bookmarks: places.sqlite in the profile folder in "AppData\Roaming". Clearing data in "AppData\Local" shouldn't have cleared the history.

You can look at a utility to browse System Restore points to see if there is an older version of places.sqlite available.

You can use the button on the "Help -> More Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page to go to the current Firefox profile folder or use the about:profiles page.


Firefox uses two locations for the Firefox profile folder. One location for your personal data (e.g. bookmarks) and another location for temporary files like the disk cache.

Location used for the main profile that keeps your personal data (Root Directory on about:profiles).

  • C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profile>

Location used for the disk cache and other temporary files (Local Directory on about:profiles).

  • C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profile>
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Clearing data in "AppData\Local" shouldn't have cleared the history. no kidding thats why i am here. OP i know how to access my 4 profiles in the 2 typical branches ccleaner did NOT touch any entries in the typical branches. at least not to my knowledge . i will see if there is a log file in ccleaner system restore does not indicate any history of appdata\local\temp

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any idea what the entries are in C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ragqf8bi.noCookie\cache2\entries

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also i have another branch with no slash: C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Mozilla Firefox

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That is the profile location used for the disk cache, see about:cache.

  • C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ragqf8bi.noCookie\cache2\entries

The corresponding main profile location with places.sqlite should be here:

  • C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ragqf8bi.noCookie\places.sqlite
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The location in "C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Mozilla Firefox" might be used for storing and preparing updates.

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i am delving into nirsoft. i may do the trick thanks

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Note that Nirsoft also has a utility to inspect places.sqlite.

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using nirsoft utility for opening windows restore points i have attempted to copy and paste both only the places.sq file and the entire profile from 2 different restore points and from 2 different profiles. i have tried to paste both to a brand new profile and to an existing profile . every one of my attempts results in the places.sq file being deemed corrupt by firefox. any suggestions? and yes i had already tried the nirsoft history browser. but i have not tried it on the restore point file.

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Note that probably best is to copy places.sqlite to a new profile. Also make sure that you remove existing places.sqlite-shm and places.sqlite-wal temp files.

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create a new empty profile and then copy only places.sqlite and nothing else?

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This in only for checking out each places.sqlite file you recovered without messing with your current profile.

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i copied 5 places.sqlite files from different windows restore shadow copies, but none of then could be opened in firefox or more directly with systools. also using windows restore had no affect on any of the profiles places.sqlite files.

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You can check the files in a SQLite viewing application or via online websites.

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is this a check for complete or hashtag or corrupt?

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https://inloop.github.io/sqlite-viewer/ great tool thanks. all my old places... displayed ok all my harvested places... from windows shadow copy failed. so i will look for a better shadow copy harvest tool. thanks that was enlightening