How to remove large number of entries from url history in Firefox?

Question

I want to remove large number of urls from my page history - they all match simple regexp, but there is a lot of them - doing this by "delete" in suggestion box is not an option. And when I bring history tab, whenever I click on item, it automatically opens - so I can't remove there anyway.

I heard that these urls are somewhere stored in sqllite format. Where exactly? Can I connect there and remove it from there (of course with Firefox not running)?

Answer 1

Seems you are right. In my Firefox profile directory, there is a filed named places.sqlite. Opening it with sqlite reveals (amongst others) the tables moz_places and moz_historyvisits. It seems that moz_historyvisits uses the primary of moz_places to refer to the URLs.

I suggest you back up that file before you start deleting.

Answer 2

In Windows, You can do this from the Firefox history window (opens with CTRL H)

I presume that when you type "regexp" in the search pane, it shows all the entries you are interested in.

First

• Right click on the first entry to select that item then press escape.
• The selected item will remain selected, but not opened.

Then either

1. Hit CTRL A to select all the items, or
2. Hit Shift - DownArrow to select a subset of the selected entries

Then hit Delete

Answer 3

They are stored in the moz_places table as full URL strings in the places.sqlite database, which is found in these locations:

Windows XP

C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\[profile folder]\places.sqlite

Windows Vista

C:\Users\[user]\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\[profile folder]\places.sqlite

GNU/Linux

/home/[user]/.mozilla/firefox/[profile folder]/places.sqlite

Mac OS X

/Users/[user]/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/default.lov/places.sqlite

of course, [user] and [profile folder] will be different for your machine.