History.plist

Latest revision as of 07:54, 6 April 2020

Versions of the Apple Safari web browser before version 10.10^[2] (2014^[3])^{[note 1]} keep the primary copy of its history in a file called History.plist. This is a Property List file, which used the XML-based property list format before version 10.2, when the use of the binary version was made optional; after version 10.4, this became the deafult^[4]. It stores dates as seconds since midnight, January 1, 2001, UTC. On desktop installations, it can be found at the path ~/Library/Safari/History.plist (using the Unix convention of using a tilde for a user's home directory). On backups of mobile installations, it can be found at ed50eadf14505ef0b433e0c4a380526ad6656d3a^[5], at 1d6740792a2b845f4c1e6220c43906d7f0afe8ab^[6], or at ed50eadf14505ef0b433e0c4a380526ad6656d3a from IOS 8 after.^[5]

[edit] Identification

The History.plist file will contain the ASCII string "WebHistoryFileVersion" near the beginning.

[edit] Software

• SafariHistoryView

[edit] See Also

• History.db (successor)
• HistoryIndex.sk

[edit] Notes

1. ↑ This corresponds in time to the release of IOS version 8, but there is little that can be discerned from public discussion about when the transition on IOS happened, besides that it was some time around then.

[edit] References

1. ↑ Wikipedia:Safari
2. ↑ https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6615000, post beginning with "Looks like I may have figured this out"
3. ↑ Wikipedia:OS X Yosemite
4. ↑ https://kb.digital-detective.net/display/BLADE1/Recovering+Apple+Safari+History+Binary+PList+(Property+List)+Files
5. ↑ ^{5.0 5.1} https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/104112/where-is-the-safaris-history-plist-file-in-ios-7/152999
6. ↑ https://github.com/ccastillop/iOS-Corrupted-Backup-Reader/blob/master/iOS-Corrupted-Backup-Reader.py