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

Clearing history doesn't clear auto suggestions and autofills (NOT good)

more options

Please can someone explain to me. I go to a different place to work and I go on firefox and login to my account to sync all the passwords and saved websites needed to do my work. Finishing my work I am clearing all the history from today (yes, ticking all the boxes) and disconnecting from my Firefox account. HOWEVER, even doing it a few times and restarting firefox didn't remove all the Google accounts etc.

I don't want to sound like a drama queen but how can I trust Firefox? What was I supposed to do to ACTUALLY clear my activity to leave the place hoping for people using the PC in the following days to not see my accounts! Any advice will be much appreciated.

Please can someone explain to me. I go to a different place to work and I go on firefox and login to my account to sync all the passwords and saved websites needed to do my work. Finishing my work I am clearing all the history from today (yes, ticking all the boxes) and disconnecting from my Firefox account. HOWEVER, even doing it a few times and restarting firefox didn't remove all the Google accounts etc. I don't want to sound like a drama queen but how can I trust Firefox? What was I supposed to do to ACTUALLY clear my activity to leave the place hoping for people using the PC in the following days to not see my accounts! Any advice will be much appreciated.

All Replies (4)

more options

Who else uses this installation of Firefox? Is it okay to blow out all their data, too?

Saved Logins and Bookmarks are not part of history (you can see the categories that are considered part of history in the Clear Recent History dialog).

To remove Saved Logins you need to either:

(A) Delete the logins from the page called up by

menu button > Logins and Passwords

(B) Delete the logins.json file from disk (if there is nothing you wanted to leave in this Firefox)

That file is in the currently active Firefox profile folder. More info: Profiles - Where Firefox stores your bookmarks, passwords and other user data.

To remove Bookmarks, it depends. You could:

(A) Use the Library window to multi-select and delete your bookmarks

On Windows, Ctrl+Shift+b will call that up

(B) Restore an older bookmark backup

See: Restore bookmarks from backup or move them to another computer

(C) Delete all the files that store bookmarks to force Firefox back to defaults

Those would be:

  • [profile.folder]\places.sqlite
  • [profile.folder]\bookmarkbackups\ => all files recent enough to have your bookmarks
more options

Going forward, could I suggest:

Firefox for Windows/Mac/Linux does not have a "guest mode" that allows you to avoid synchronizing with existing data. Instead, you can create a new guest profile. Then when you are done, you can flush that profile including all of its data files. This is going to seem like a lot of steps the first few times, but with practice, it will become completely natural.

(1) Set up your guest profile

About Profiles page

(A) After starting Firefox in the machine's default profile, type or paste about:profiles in the address bar and press Enter/Return to load it.

(B) Click the "Create a New Profile" button, then click Next. Assign a name like guest, ignore the option to relocate the profile folder, and click the Finish button. Firefox automatically makes your guest profile the new default profile for external links.

IMPORTANT: keep this page open for future use during the cleanup phase.

(2) Start and configure your guest profile

(A) Scroll down on the about:profiles page to your new profile and click its "Launch profile in new browser" button. Firefox should open a new window that looks like a brand new, uncustomized installation.

New Firefox profile

(B) Set up your guest profile as desired, for example, connect to your Firefox Account.

(3) Work work work work work

(4) Clean up

(A) Disconnect from your Firefox Account in the guest profile. We don't want any clean-up changes to affect your other Firefox installations.

(B) Exit the guest profile using the menu, for example,

  • "3-bar" menu button > Exit
  • (menu bar) File > Exit

About Profiles page

(C) Back on the about:profiles page in the machine's original Firefox profile, reset that profile as the default profile -- there will be bold text that says "This is the profile in use and it cannot be deleted." -- by clicking its Set as Default Profile button.

(D) Delete your guest profile using its Remove button and choosing the Delete Files option. There is no Undo for this.

more options

Thank you very much for your hard work in replying. I must be honest though - it put me off. May I ask just for confirmation a couple of questions:

first I guess retorical question: 1) Does it mean that deleting only that day history I left there also all my past history from my Firefox with all my past activity, which probably got synced to that PC during the day?

2) Alternatively to the complicated ways round you have suggested in this case would simply swapping (e.g. renaming) profile folder not be the simplest working idea? So, coming to my workplace moving or renaming local profile, sync my data on a fresh profile folder and then delete my profile folder and replace it back with the previous local firefox folder.

more options

djemen said

first I guess retorical question: 1) Does it mean that deleting only that day history I left there also all my past history from my Firefox with all my past activity, which probably got synced to that PC during the day?

I don't sync history, so I'm not the best person to experiment with that.

2) Alternatively to the complicated ways round you have suggested in this case would simply swapping (e.g. renaming) profile folder not be the simplest working idea? So, coming to my workplace moving or renaming local profile, sync my data on a fresh profile folder and then delete my profile folder and replace it back with the previous local firefox folder.

I'm not sure how well that would work because I'm having trouble envisioning all the steps you would follow.