Summary: In this blog, we'll share three different methods to free recover your deleted Safari or Chrome browser history and cookies on Mac. Besides, avail the free Mac data recovery software to recover up to 1 GB deleted browser history.
“Hello friends, I accidentally deleted Safari browser history on my MacBook Pro. 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 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 Mac data recovery methods. The next sections describe three different methods to recover your deleted Safari or Chrome browser history in macOS.
Time Machine is an indispensable back-up and restoration application integrated with your Mac. If you have set up your Time Machine back-up hard drive to take an incremental back-up, you can restore all the deleted browser history in an instant. Steps are as follows:
The process of deleted browser history recovery with Time Machine is simple, but it requires an updated back-up.
a) Using Google’s MyActivity feature
This option works if you had signed in to your Google account before deleting your browsing history. You need to sign-in to your Google account on Chrome and visit the following link: https://myactivity.google.com/myactivity.
Your Google activities, such as the web pages you had visited, your locations, YouTube history, etc. will be displayed in the window. You also have the option to filter and view your Google activities by Date and Product.
b) Using Browser Cookies
You can also restore deleted Chrome history with your browser cookies. A browser cookie is data that your browser stores on your computer as you surf the web. You can use these saved cookies to recover your deleted Google Chrome browser history on Mac.
Follow the steps below:
1. Open Google Chrome on your Mac and click on the 3 dots on the top-right of the window.
2. From the drop-down, click Settings.
3. Scroll down, and under Privacy and Security, you will see Cookies and other site data. Click on that.
4. In the next window, click See all cookies and site data.
5. To locate the website URL from the browser cookie, click on the cookie.
6. Expand the cookie details on the next page. You’ll see the URL under Domain.
When you don’t have Time Machine back-up, 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.
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 back-up. But if you don’t use Time Machine or haven’t updated the back-up, 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 logical data loss scenarios. Further, the software is compatible with macOS Big Sur, Catalina, Mojave, and earlier.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Q.1 What other file types I can recover with Stellar Data Recovery Free Edition?
A. In addition to browser history, you can recover deleted documents, videos, images, emails, etc. Overall, Stellar Data Recovery Free Edition supports more than 300 file types. You can also add and edit unlimited custom file types.
Q2. How can I recover more than 1 GB of Data with Stellar software?
A. To recover more than 1 GB of data, you can upgrade to Professional or Premium editions of the software.
Q3. How to recover empty trash data?
A. You can recover empty Trash data by running the Stellar Data Recovery Free Edition in your Mac device. The tool will scan through the hard drive of your Mac and will list out the deleted Trash files that you can restore. Read more.
Q4. How to boot a Mac and recover data?
A. If your Mac is crashed or not booting, you can load the software in an external USB device (minimum 1GB) and create a bootable recovery drive on a working Mac. Next, insert the USB to your crashed/unbootable Mac. To read the step-by-step process, please refer to the link here.
Vishal is a data recovery expert @Stellar. He addresses data loss scenarios on a Mac. He intends to help people solve their macOS problems. Besides, Vishal prefers to read about astronomy and autobiography, and his favorite is Steve Jobs - The man who thought different written by Karen Bluementhal.
I was surfing on Safari for some official work and by mistake I cleared the browser history without bookmarking the important wed addresses. Now, came up to this blog and will definitely try to recover deleted Safari history using the above mentioned methods!!
Hi Vernon,
Hope you will find this article helpful and you may also recover your deleted history!
Cheers!!
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I’ll certainly return.
Just the solution I was looking for, this really worked for me! Thanks!
Many Thanks for the feedback, Jason!
I have time machine and followed the steps. But, it did not work. Any advise?
Probably the deleted history is overwritten. In such a case, chances of recovery are quite thin. Did you tried Deep Scan?
Hi,
is it possible to recover cookies on Safari macbook?
Hi Danish,
The recovered history.db file will contain all Safari history data, hopefully Cookies.
Thanks.
Hi!
I made reinstalling Mac OS and after Safari lost some bookmarks and history.
Can I recover or find some files with history and bookmarks?
is it possible?
Thank you.
I made reinstalling with my mistake when I changed name Admin user folder.
Hi Alex, if you have iCloud configured on your Mac, your Safari bookmarks will appear across all of your devices.
– Go to iCloud.com
– Enter your Apple ID and password.
– Click Settings
– Click Restore Bookmarks, under Advanced you will see your archived bookmarks. Click Restore.
Hope this helps.
No. There is no last update in my Apple ID.
I think, I need to find files in HD and add by hand, but I don’t know how I can do it.
What do you do if the folder called history.plist is not there? Can you add it?
Hello Maya,
We would recommend you to use our data recovery software i.e. Stellar Data Recovery Professional for Mac in order to recover your required files.
You may install a demo version of our software from the below link and select drive in order to start scan on the same for data recovery.
https://cloud.stellarinfo.com/StellarDataRecoveryProfessional-B.dmg.zip
Once you will be satisfied with preview results, you may buy the full version of the software.
Hi,
Can this software recover deleted Google Chrome browser history from about three years ago? Thank you.
Hello Maria,
It is very hard to recover three years old browser history since the chances of overwritten of data is very high.
Very useful blog. Somehow I accidentally deleted my Safari browser history but luckily found the complete solution from this blog. I have successfully recovered my browser history using Stellar Mac Data Recovery software.
I feel glad you liked my blog and got the solution from it. Thank you for your valuable feedback.
Thanks for your compliment.
Is this software support APFS file system?
Hello Amber,
Yes, the latest version of software supports APFS file system.