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I need to recover old history. Google Chrome only stores the last 3 months in the "History" file.

The rest is in the "Archived History" file. How can I view this older history?

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6 Answers 6

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The History and Archived History files are in fact an SQLite databases.

You can open them using SQLite Database Browser or one of the many other programs that can open SQLite databases.

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  • are you 100% sure? it says 'archived history' is not a sqlite file. have you tried it yourself?
    – designparadise
    Commented Apr 21, 2012 at 10:56
  • yes, I opened both with SQLite Database browser. You may also try SQLite Manager, which is a Firefox plugin: addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sqlite-manager
    – Cristian Lupascu
    Commented Apr 21, 2012 at 11:42
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    @designparadise yes, I think it's best to close chrome before opening the database.
    – Cristian Lupascu
    Commented Apr 21, 2012 at 19:55
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    @w0lf, Seems like there is no more Archived History file anymore.
    – Pacerier
    Commented Oct 12, 2015 at 6:29
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    Where does the "Archived History" database reside?
    – Michael Haephrati
    Commented Jun 13, 2019 at 19:29
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I think this is no longer possible

Edit: I think you can't view archived history anymore. See the comments to the other answers.

My old answer

Download ChromeHistoryView (freeware). Click "Options > Advanced Options". Point the tool to the location of your Archived History file.

The tool is made for Windows.

If you don't have access to a Windows PC, that's okay. I've found that it works fine in Wine, so you can also use it on Mac and Linux.

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History older than 90 days is stored in the Archived History sqlite database file. As with the Chrome install, the actual location of the actual sqlite file varies by operating system. Once it is located you may have to close Google Chrome to unlock the file then open it with your favorite sqlite data browser.

Windows XP

C:\Documents and Settings\%USERNAME%\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Archived History

Windows 7 or Vista

C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Archived History

Mac OS X

~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default/Archived History

Linux

~/.config/google-chrome/Default/Archived History

As of the writing of this comment the Archived History database has the following tables:

meta
urls
visits
visit_source
keyword_search_terms

To query the file by visit and URL

--- Code below finds visits between 01/01/2013 and 02/01/2013 
--- on a windows machine which explains the timestamp conversion   
SELECT 
visits.visit_time
, datetime(visits.visit_time/1000000-11644473600,'unixepoch','localtime')
, urls.url, urls.title
FROM visits
LEFT JOIN urls ON visits.url = urls.id 
WHERE visits.visit_time > (strftime('%s','2013-01-01') + 11644473600) * 1000000
AND visits.visit_time < (strftime('%s','2013-02-01') + 11644473600) * 1000000
LIMIT 100
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  • The visit datatime format is based on the information from this SO question and specifically the information submitted by @Squiggly stackoverflow.com/questions/2141537/…
    – Eric Kigathi
    Commented Feb 25, 2014 at 19:11
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    Unfortunately, Google decided to remove the Archived History from our computers sometime in the Fall of 2014. Now we're only able to see about 90 days of History (no more archived history).
    – Taptronic
    Commented Feb 17, 2015 at 3:16
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    I just reported this issue to Google, here code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=465754
    – d-b
    Commented Mar 10, 2015 at 16:17
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    @ElectricAutomation, Seriously that's the worst thing that have ever happened to Chrome. Silent deletion of all browsing data.
    – Pacerier
    Commented Oct 12, 2015 at 6:30
  • Sad, but no surprise, because it is Google.. However probably somebody finds useful what I found. I do have also the History-20220618210410.820131.backup file which resides in the same directory as History file. The .backup file contains at least additional 3 months of browsing history. I don't remember that I explicitly generated this file. My Chrome version is 104.0.5112.81.
    – Alexander Samoylov
    Commented Aug 26, 2022 at 19:52
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Use history.google.com - it also stores all the browsing history.

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  • Yes more than 90 days here!
    – crokusek
    Commented Aug 14, 2021 at 6:41
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There is no Archived History in new Chrome versions. I developed a Chrome extension U History (available on chrome web store) to save your history to you Google Drive in months. It will automatically save once you authorized (If you want to make sure the history are saved you can do manually). Moreover you can read your saved history. If you run into any problems or find any bugs pls feel free to contact me.

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  • Please do not post the same answer to multiple questions. If the same information really answers both questions, then one question (usually the newer one) should be closed as a duplicate of the other. You can indicate this by voting to close it as a duplicate or, if you don't have enough reputation for that, raise a flag to indicate that it's a duplicate. Otherwise tailor your answer to this question and don't just paste the same answer in multiple places.
    – DavidPostill ♦
    Commented Jan 6, 2018 at 7:10
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I had no "default" folder. For me history was saved @ C:\Users\user\AppData\local\Google\Chrome\profile1 in a file called history with no extension.

It is an sqlite database file. You can open it with DB Browser for SQLite. Google Chrome must be closed to open it.

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