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Running Mac OS 10.7.3 - Firefox 11.0. I can't delete my browsing history. When I go to Tools > Clear Recent History, nothing seems to happen. Going into Preferences > Privacy & tweaking the options there does not work either.

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Running Mac OS 10.7.3. Firefox 11.0 for Mac. Tools > Clear Recent History..., nothing seems to happen - does not remove browsing history. No separate window for selecting recent history appears. Preferences > Privacy and tweaking the options there does not work either.

Running Mac OS 10.7.3. Firefox 11.0 for Mac. Tools > Clear Recent History..., nothing seems to happen - does not remove browsing history. No separate window for selecting recent history appears. Preferences > Privacy and tweaking the options there does not work either.

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Make sure that you do not run Firefox in permanent Private Browsing mode.

To see all History and Cookie settings, choose:

  • Firefox > Preferences > Privacy, choose the setting Firefox will: Use custom settings for history
  • Deselect: [ ] "Always use private browsing mode"
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I am not running Firefox is Private Browsing mode. The window that had popped up in previous versions of Firefox when I selected "Clear Recent History" does not appear. My preferences from previous versions of Firefox have not changed upon updating to Firefox 11.0.

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Is that menu entry enabled (not grayed out)?


Try to repair the disk permissions:

Try to remove the Firefox plist file (org.mozilla.firefox.plist).

Go to "~/Library/Preferences" and remove the plist file for Firefox (org.mozilla.firefox.plist)


Create a new profile as a test to check if your current profile is causing the problems.

See "Basic Troubleshooting: Make a new profile":

There may be extensions and plugins installed by default in a new profile, so check that in "Tools > Add-ons > Extensions & Plugins" in case there are still problems.

If that new profile works then you can transfer some files from the old profile to that new profile, but be careful not to copy corrupted files.

See: