Google Chrome is considered one of the fastest and most convenient browsers. It has a large number of useful features in its arsenal. You can use options that may seem impossible at first glance, such as recovering deleted history. Such a need may arise when you want to remember something, or find some lost info, or simply view pages visited by other users of this computer. So, how feasible is such an operation, and in what ways can you see the deleted browser history?
Is it possible to restore Chrome’s history?
Browser history is a standard menu for any web browser, which displays a list of visited sites. Through the settings menu, you can sort visited sites by date, time, find the desired web resource, and clear history. If you have not cleared your history or cookies, then you can easily go to one of the sites you have visited before if you cannot remember its name. In Google Chrome, a separate section is allocated for the list of pages to be opened. In addition to the standard set of features, you can even restore deleted sites from history and view them. However, to restore the history, you need to use tricky methods using third-party tools.
Recovery options
So, we found out that the history in Google Chrome is recoverable, even if you accidentally or deliberately deleted it. To recover it, you need to use one of the following methods.
Google mail account
The easiest and fastest way to restore history on the Internet when using Google Chrome is to access your personal Google account. If you are logged into your Gmail account while working in the browser, then all your activities on the Internet are synchronized and stored on the Google server. If you deleted bookmarks, history or the browser itself, and then reinstalled it, you can restore all the necessary information from the cloud under your account.
Note that your history starts recording from the moment when you first do all these actions. If you never logged in or turned on sync before you deleted the history, then there will be nothing to recover.
What do you need to do:
- Launch Google Chrome.
- Click on your profile icon in the upper right corner.
- Click “Turn on sync”.
- Log into your Gmail account.
- Press your userpic again, and select “Manage your Google account”.
- Select “Data & Privacy”.
- In the “History settings” turn on “Web & App activity”.
When you need to retrieve some deleted piece of info, just press the arrow button, and then click on the corresponding activity: Search, Chrome, Google Play and so on.
Browser cache
This method will allow you to view only a limited list of recent stories.
Prior to version 66 of Chrome, you could view the cache using the chrome://cache/ command. Now it doesn’t work.
To view the cache, you’ll need special programs – for example, ChromeCacheView or ImageCacheView.
Handy Recovery software
Handy Recovery is a freeware that helps you recover your browser history. You can download it on the developer’s official page for free.
Course of action:
- Install the downloaded installation file on your computer;
- Open Handy Recovery;
- Go to: C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\;
- Select the User Data folder;
- Click on the “Restore” button.
Some of these folders are hidden, so first open Windows Explorer (keyboard shortcut Win + E), open the “View” tab in it and check the “Hidden Items” box.
After the Google Chrome history recovery process is completed, open the browser, go to the “History” section. The list will show all deleted previously visited pages.
Cookies
Using this it will be possible to restore only recently visited pages.
Course of action:
- Go to the Chrome menu by clicking on the three dots in the upper right corner and select “Settings”;
- In the section “Privacy and security” click on the column “Cookies and other site data”;
- Click on the arrow “All cookies and other site data”.
The method works on the condition that cookies are saved and gives very meager results. Most likely, you will not even find specific pages – only the main pages of the sites you visit. They will be marked with colored icons in the gray mass of technical cookies.
System rollback
The essence of the method is that we return Windows to the state before the moment when we deleted the history. We roll back the system in time.
Before carrying out the system restore procedure, it is necessary to make a backup copy of important files.
Course of action (for Windows 7):
- Go to the “Start” menu;
- Open the “Control Panel” tab;
- Open the “Recovery” section, and then “File recovery”;
- In the “Select a backup to restore”, click on the “Next” button.
- Set the rollback time in the pop-up window.
- Click on the “Finish” button.
Next, you need to restart your PC, after which you can launch the Google Chrome browser and check for deleted history.
Instructions for Windows 10:
- In the line next to the “Start” button, write “Recovery”;
- Click on the match that appears;
- Select the item “Start System Restore”;
- Next, select the desired rollback point, start loading data;
- After the process of creating a copy is completed, restart the PC.
It should be noted that not all restore points are created automatically. You need to go to “Recovery” and make sure that it is turned on at all.
Additional recovery methods
Recuva application – allows you to recover data of all formats in any browser. The program is available for free download.
Instruction:
- Run the program;
- Enter the layout by clicking the Next button;
- Click on the column “In a specific location”, click the Browse button;
- Set the file storage location – C:\Users\PC Name\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default;
- After checking the files, find the History-Journal file, then click on Recover;
- Specify the location for saving the file with the list of browsing histories.
The DiscDigger application is a program similar to the Recuva utility in terms of the action algorithm. DiscDigger does not need to be installed, just unzip the downloaded file.
Restoring the browsing history on your phone
The procedure for recovering a deleted Google Chrome browsing history on a smartphone is somewhat more complicated than for a PC. After all, returning the operating system to a previous version is impossible.
There are two exits:
- Connect your phone to your computer and use Handy Recovery.
- Link your Google Mail account to your browser in advance.
If synchronization was performed in advance, then restoring Google Chrome history is not difficult (see the “Google mail account” section).
