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How can I restore all history, cache and cookies that were removed by a privacy setting that I specifically didn't choose, but was checked?

  • 7 cavab
  • 36 have this problem
  • 4 views
  • Last reply by sandpail

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I very specifically did not choose for Firefox to clear my history in my privacy preferences folder, but this morning when I opened Firefox, all my history, cache and cookies were gone, and the choice to have Firefox clear my history in privacy preferences was checked. I don't know what caused this - no recent updates, etc. - and, worse, don't know how to resurrect all this information. I opened a backup version of Firefox, but it had no history on it either. How can I get this history back, and how can I keep Firefox from mysteriously deleting it all again? I'm a Mac user. Thanks.

I very specifically did not choose for Firefox to clear my history in my privacy preferences folder, but this morning when I opened Firefox, all my history, cache and cookies were gone, and the choice to have Firefox clear my history in privacy preferences was checked. I don't know what caused this - no recent updates, etc. - and, worse, don't know how to resurrect all this information. I opened a backup version of Firefox, but it had no history on it either. How can I get this history back, and how can I keep Firefox from mysteriously deleting it all again? I'm a Mac user. Thanks.

All Replies (7)

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This might have been caused by an extension that has updated.
You have a few extensions that control privacy data like cookies, so one of those might have changed this.

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Thanks, but I was unaware if any of them updated. I will check that and adjust if necessary. But whether any of them updated or not, is there any way to get that history back?

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Firefox's stores history together with bookmarks in the places.sqlite database file. There's no "undo" or recycle bin for the removal of history from the file. On Windows, you sometimes can recover automatic backups (restore points) made when there are system updates, but I don't know whether MacOS X has anything like that.

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Thanks for your thoughts on this. Does anyone with Mac experience know how to restore Firefox history?

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Troubleshooter 1.1a was my only extension that updated yesterday. Could that have caused the loss of history, and if so, is there any way to resurrect the history?

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Thanks, cor-el, I do use Time Machine and so I'll give this a try.