Can Chrome browser history be exported to an HTML file?

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In Google Chrome, is there a built-in method to make an HTML file I can save to my local machine, like the file for bookmarks?

If not, is there an extension that does the same?

google-chrome history

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edited Jul 23 '13 at 23:36 nc4pk 6,13093961

asked May 31 '13 at 17:39 MountainMan 225128

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It's even simpler than using an extension: the History page in Chrome is already an HTML page, as are all the other panes and pages in Chrome.

Simply right-click on an empty part of the page, select Save As... and save as full HTML. If you re-open in Chrome, it'd render the same, icons and all. If you try opening the resulting page in a different browser, you'd still get all the history data, just not the styles and icons.

Update May 2016

Since Google constantly changes the way internal pages (history, bookmarks, settings etc.) are rendered, the original answer is no longer accurate. I.e. in Chrome 52 (May 2016) the History URLs appear inside an iframe with a paging mechanism.

For posterity's sake, the best method to get all the bookmarks data (url + date) as a CSV file is described in this article.

TL;DR:

1. Make sure you have sqlite3 installed in your system. You can use compiled binaries for Windows systems.
2. Locate the History file (on Mac: cd ~/Library/Application\ Support/Google/Chrome/Default/. On Windows: cd "C:\Users\user_name\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default" - don't forget to use your user name).
3. Copy the file History to another location (you can't use the original while Chrome is open).
4. From a command line: C:\> sqlite3 Historysqlite> .headers onsqlite> .mode csvsqlite> .output my-history.csvsqlite> SELECT datetime(last_visit_time/1000000-11644473600,'unixepoch','localtime'), url FROM urls ORDER BY last_visit_time DESC

You should now have a file called my-history.csv containing all URLs and dates.

Script as a gist can be found here.

Hopefully this works for you in 2016. Can't promise it will in 2019 though :)

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edited May 9 '16 at 14:14

answered May 31 '13 at 18:21 Traveling Tech Guy 7,37062236

God Forbid! Google ever think to make that obvious on the History page as they do with the GUI on the Bookmarks Manager page. Cool. – MountainMan May 31 '13 at 22:30

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Actually, that doesn't really work, because the history is iframed and paged, so you only get a tiny little bit of your browsing history. – Quandary Sep 7 '13 at 18:15

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It worked on Chrome 28 on my Mac. But even if it doesn't work for you, right click in the I frame and choose "save frame source" – Traveling Tech Guy Sep 8 '13 at 6:03

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Even if it works, it will only grab the current results, not the whole history. – Synetech Dec 28 '13 at 21:15

@TravelingTechGuy, This is a lousy answer which deserves to be deleted. There's literally hundreds of pages of chrome history, this will only "export" the first page. Besides, the format of that export is unusable. There's no way to get a list of URLs one per line. – Pacerier May 8 '16 at 8:00 

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up vote24down vote

In Mac:

sudo port install sqlite3
cd /Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default
sqlite3 History "select datetime(last_visit_time/1000000-11644473600,'unixepoch'),url from  urls order by last_visit_time desc" > ~/history_export.txt 

In Windows:

cd C:\Users\Sashka\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default
sqlite History "select datetime(last_visit_time/1000000-11644473600,'unixepoch'),url from  urls order by last_visit_time desc" > history_export.txt

This could take a really long time if you are on Windows and do not have SSD.

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answered Dec 28 '13 at 21:08 Antonio 4841718

And where does the HTML part come in? – Synetech Dec 28 '13 at 21:16

That's a plain text. However it could be useful for Mac users because the previous method works only in Windows – Antonio Dec 28 '13 at 22:18

Yes, I know, but the question is about how the Chrome history can be exported to HTML, not plain-text. – Synetech Dec 28 '13 at 22:20

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A couple of things have changed since this answer <superuser.com/a/694283/459638>; was written (on the mac side of things at least, can't speak for Windows side). 1. sqlite is now (always was?) shipped with OSX so no need to install it. 2. The path for Chrome's app data has changed. Now the command you should use is: cd ~/Library/Application\ Support/Google/Chrome/Default/ – Callum Gare Jun 17 '15 at 4:45 

I'm on Mac OS 10.10.5 Yosemite and I'm not seeing the sqlite3 file in the location specified. Does anyone know where it is now? – Scott S. Sep 8 '15 at 15:28

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up vote9down vote

There is a tool called Chrome History View that exports to several different formats, including HTML. There is a writeup of the tool here.

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edited Dec 28 '13 at 21:17 Synetech 51.9k27150286

answered May 31 '13 at 18:07 Brad Patton 8,545122959

How do you set the Chrome user-data-dir if you're not using the default? Also, is there an IE version? – Pacerier May 25 '16 at 18:46

@Pacerier there is an option to set a specific history file, in [options]--[advanced option] – holly Aug 18 '16 at 14:47

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up vote6down vote

I just created a Chrome extension that exports your Chrome history in csv and json called Export History.

You can open the json file in Chrome and view it like a webpage if you install the JSONView extension, and can open the csv file in Excel or Numbers.

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answered Mar 23 '14 at 22:21 cgenco 15913

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I have 2 questions: 1) Is it paid extension or payment is only an option 2) Why it requires me to login into google account? – yatsa Jan 19 '15 at 9:09 

1) payment is an option for CSV exports; JSON exports are free. 2) the google login is for the Google payment system, which you only need if you upgrade. I should fix that to only require a login if you're upgrading. – cgenco Jan 20 '15 at 11:56 

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The reviews indicate that it is nag-ware and that the dates are off (you need to account for time-zone differences). – Synetech Dec 17 '15 at 18:03

@Synetech I'm still not sure a reliable way to account for time zones because of how Excel handles them, but figuring it out is top on my todo list! – cgenco Jan 21 '16 at 22:21

@cgenco, It still insists on sign-in. Why is signing-in required to tryout the app? – Pacerier May 8 '16 at 8:01

@Pacerier Huh, I'm not sure. I think it has to do with how Chrome handles the API access the extension is requesting. I open sourced it here if you'd like to take a look: github.com/christiangenco/chrome-export-history– cgenco May 16 '16 at 21:02

I don't know what I am missing, but this seems exactly like chrom's normal user-sync feature. We login, we ask to view the web store history, we ask what to sync. This has not been updated since 2014, so maybe at the time this was a novel function, but as it stands it seems completely redundant. Chrome History View above is precise, working and does exactly what it should! – Two Sheds May 29 '16 at 5:51