Selectively Cleaning Firefox History

Firefox does a nice job of keeping my history. But not a perfect one: certain history gets in my way, and I didn’t find a good extension to automatically clean it. So I wrote a python3 script that lets me do it manually.

GitHub: Gist: clean_places.py: Python 3 script to manually remove some Firefox history items.

#!/usr/bin/python3

# The queries operate only if either:
#  * There are more than 10 visits (for things like my mail, which only bug me
#    once they are trying to clog up my new tab page)
#  * They are > 10 days old (for things like searches; recent searches aren't
#    a big problem; old searches are).

# This should be run only if Firefox is shut down (and I mean really; you
# don't want to corrupt your DB because it was hung!)

# Also, take care about your queries!

import datetime
import sqlite3
import time


PLACES_DB = "/EDITME/path/to/places.sqlite"

conn = sqlite3.connect(PLACES_DB)

cursor = conn.cursor()

select_statement = """select url from moz_places
                      where url like :query and
                      (last_visit_date < :ten_days_ago or
                       visit_count > 10)"""

delete_statement = """delete from moz_places
                      where url like :query and
                      (last_visit_date < :ten_days_ago or
                       visit_count > 10)"""

# The time stored in the DB is in UTC, so we need to be consistent.
old_time_dt = datetime.datetime.utcnow() - datetime.timedelta(days=10)
raw_time = time.mktime(old_time_dt.timetuple())
ten_days_ago = int(raw_time * 1000000)

queries = ["%localhost/roundcube/?%", # Round Cube
           "%.google.com/search?%", # Google Search
          ]

# Set to True if you want to preview what would be deleted
TEST_MODE = False

if TEST_MODE:
    statement = select_statement
else:
    statement = delete_statement

for query in queries:
    variable_bindings = {"query": query, "ten_days_ago": ten_days_ago}
    cursor.execute(statement, variable_bindings)
    if TEST_MODE:
        for row in cursor:
            print(row['url'])

if not TEST_MODE:
    print("Deleted {} rows.".format(conn.total_changes))

conn.commit()
cursor.close()

To use it you first shut down Firefox. You should make sure it’s really shut down, as you don’t want to try to modify the database while something else is. If you want to be extra paranoid, make a fresh backup your places.sqlite file.

You need to edit the PLACES_DB variable to point to your places.sqlite file. It’s usually somewhere like: /home/YOUR_USER/.mozilla/firefox/YOUR_PROFILE_FOLDER/places.sqlite.

You need to edit your query strings (queries variable). Use % as a wildcard match.

You should set TEST_MODE to True and run the script once to make sure it’s hitting your targets. The two statements are the same except one is a SELECT and the other a DELETE.

TEST_MODE will simply print what the script would delete.

If you’re satisfied, you can turn TEST_MODE off and let it rip.

If you’re adventurous you can install the sqlite3 command line tool and open the database and explore. Note that you should also ensure Firefox is not running (at least not on the same profile) when opening your places.sqlite in sqlite3.