How to Free Recover Deleted Safari or Chrome Browser History on Mac?

“Hello friends, I accidentally deleted Safari browser history on my macOS Catalina. It contained details of a few important websites that I visited last week but don’t remember their names or URL anymore. Is there a way to recover or view my lost Safari history? Thanks.”

Browser history is probably the thing you least care about on your Mac—but it is valuable. The Safari or the Chrome browser history keeps a log of all the websites that you visited in the past including details of your confidential browsing data. Browser history also keeps track of other browsing activities on your Mac.

Like any other data, the Safari or the Chrome browser history is stored on your Mac SSD or hard drive. So, if you delete the browser history from your Mac either intentionally or accidentally, you can recover it by using standard data recovery methods. The next sections describe two different methods to recover your deleted Safari or Chrome browser history in macOS.

1. Free Restore Deleted Browser History by Using Time Machine

Time Machine is an indispensable backup and restoration application integrated with your Mac. If you have set up your Time Machine backup hard drive; kept the external backup device connected to your Mac; and scheduled the application to take the incremental backup, then you can restore all the deleted browser history by using Time Machine. Steps are as follows:

1. Quit your Safari application in case it is open on your macOS.
2. Ensure that the Time Machine backup hard drive is connected to your Mac.
3. Go to Finder > Go > Go To Folder. In the text box, enter the path: ~/Library/Safari/
4. In the Safari directory, select the History.db file.
5. On the Menu Bar, go to Time Machine > Enter Time Machine.
6. In Time Machine, use the Timeline or Up/Down arrow to navigate to the date that contains Safari history data.
7. Click the Restore button to restore the deleted browser history.
8. Relaunch Safari, click History menu, and select Show All History. Verify your restored browser history.

The process of deleted browser history recovery with Time Machine is simple, but it requires an updated backup.

2. Free Recover Deleted Browser History File by Using a Free Tool

When you don’t have Time Machine backup, try a free data recovery software for Mac to recover your deleted Safari or Chrome browser history. A recovery software retrieves all lost or deleted files from your Mac including the file that contains browser history.

Steps to recover the deleted browser history file are as follows:

Step 1) Download and install Stellar Data Recovery Free Edition for Mac on your MacBook, iMac, or Mac mini.

Step 2) Launch the software and from the “Select What To Recover” screen, choose Everything or customize your scan, then click Next.

Step 3) From the “Select Location” screen, select Macintosh HD the startup drive. Toggle on Deep Scan, then click Scan. Wait till the scan completes.

Step 4) After the scan, the software lists all the files deleted from your Mac. Select the browser history file (say history.db or history.plist) and click Recover.

Step 5) On the dialog window, click Browse to specify the save destination, preferably a different volume or an external hard drive. Then click Save.

Step 6) Let the software complete the recovery process. Navigate to the save location to view the browser history file.

*Stellar Data Recovery Free Edition for Mac allows you to free scan and free preview plus free recover up to 1 GB of data on Mac. To recover more, activate the software. Also, it comes with a 30-days money-back guarantee, so activate with full confidence.

Conclusion

Browser history is often taken for granted, and we realize its criticality only after we lose it. Deleted Safari or Chrome browser history on Mac can be restored by using the Time Machine backup. But if you don’t use Time Machine or the backup itself is not updated, use Stellar Data Recovery Free Edition for Mac to scan your drive and recover your deleted browser history file from the scan list. The software allows you to recover up to 1 GB of data without any cost. To recover unlimited data, activate the software. Besides recovering the deleted Safari or Chrome history, you can use the software to recover data from any logical data loss scenarios. Further, the software is compatible with macOS Catalina, Mojave, and earlier.

Related Blog: Best Data Recovery Software for Mac

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