This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

How to display entire stored site data?

  • 8 replies
  • 3 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by Happy112

more options

Hi there,

Options -> Privacy&Security -> SiteData -> Settings tells me that some sites have several MB of storage on disk. For example, www.facebook.com shows up with a whopping 3.7 MB.

So, I want to check the contents of that storage.

I navigate to www.facebook.com and check WebDeveloper -> StorageInspector. Here I find a meager 1 line session cookie of at most 2 KB, nothing else. No cache, no localStorage, no IndexedDB, no nothing. (I do not use Facebook).

What explains this tremendous difference in "SiteData" and data reported by StorageInspector ?

How can I have a look at the "SiteData" of Facebook ?

Yes, I tried several times, tried a reload of the Options > ... > Settings, restarted Firefox after deleting all the data I see in StorageInspector etc. I still get a difference of some several MB in data which is shown under SiteData and not shown under StorageInspector !

I am a bit paranoid here, since it looks to me that the browser knows something but refuses to show me...

Hi there, Options -> Privacy&Security -> SiteData -> Settings tells me that some sites have several MB of storage on disk. For example, www.facebook.com shows up with a whopping 3.7 MB. So, I want to check the contents of that storage. I navigate to www.facebook.com and check WebDeveloper -> StorageInspector. Here I find a meager 1 line session cookie of at most 2 KB, nothing else. No cache, no localStorage, no IndexedDB, no nothing. (I do not use Facebook). What explains this tremendous difference in "SiteData" and data reported by StorageInspector ? How can I have a look at the "SiteData" of Facebook ? Yes, I tried several times, tried a reload of the Options > ... > Settings, restarted Firefox after deleting all the data I see in StorageInspector etc. I still get a difference of some several MB in data which is shown under SiteData and not shown under StorageInspector ! I am a bit paranoid here, since it looks to me that the browser knows something but refuses to show me...

All Replies (8)

more options

Good question. Not enough info on this in ver 57+ as have my own questions also. If I had the info would provide. If never go to Facebook then it was added by a website that you visit that has facebook in their code. Since do not have send information to Mozilla turned on within Firefox I do not know what Extensions you are using . Can use adblocker to stop some of these cookies like Ublock Origin

Please let us know if this solved your issue or if need further assistance.

more options

I'm baffled by this dialog. It shows my own website, which stores a couple dozen bytes in local storage, is using 3.6MB. (Screenshot attached.) I can't figure out what that represents, and I should know!

more options

@Pkshadow: No, it does not solve my problem. I do not want to block cookies, but I want to understand, why the browser is giving me (what to me seems like) inconsistent information. Either the routine adding up the amount of side data is wrong or the storage inspector is hiding something from me (or my understanding of addition is different than than the understanding of the browser).

@jscher2000: EXACTLY. Something is not as it used to be - and since it is connected with locally stored data, we should be worried. If the browser reports incorrectly here this means we cannot do proper site forensics. One guess could be that it is the (sqlite ?) overhead of the localStorage implementation ?!?

more options

Maybe it builds up if you keep saving new data and aren't removing old data or the storage key is no longer valid.

If you open the website in a tab then you should be able to use the Storage Inspector.

more options

I figured out what causes my own site to use 3.6MB, it's the sql.js library used in this page:

https://www.jeffersonscher.com/res/stylishextract.html

That library ends up here:

[profile folder]\storage\temporary\https+++www.jeffersonscher.com\asmjs

Apparently this kind of storage is not shown in the Storage Inspector.

Possibly this "information gap" affects other asm.js scripts, but I haven't looked into it.

more options

jscher2000 said

https://www.jeffersonscher.com/res/stylishextract.html

I clicked on that link and look what happened (see screenshot) -  ?????

more options

Happy112 said

jscher2000 said
https://www.jeffersonscher.com/res/stylishextract.html

I clicked on that link and look what happened (see screenshot) -  ?????

Yes, same thing that happens to me. You can "Remove Selected" in the dialog and click Save Changes to flush my site data.

Alternately, you can open your profile folder, double-click into storage, then double-click into temporary, then right-click > Delete the https+++www.jeffersonscher.com folder. When you reload the Options page and check again, the data usage will be greatly reduced after that.

more options

jscher2000 said

Yes, same thing that happens to me. You can "Remove Selected" in the dialog and click Save Changes to flush my site data.

That was the first thing I did after I took the screenshot .......