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How can I make Firefox sort history per day instead of grouping the "Last 7 days" in the history sidebar ?

  • 9 cavab
  • 3 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by cor-el

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There are history entries for "Today", "Yesterday", and then "Last 7 days". I often need to find the address of a website I visited a few days ago, but I'm forced to search the whole "Last 7 days" entry, which can be quite large, even if I know the precise day. I should add that I have tried and am not interested in the History Submenu add-on for the History menu : there is no per site grouping, and I find navigating in large menus uneasy. Thank you for your assistance !

There are history entries for "Today", "Yesterday", and then "Last 7 days". I often need to find the address of a website I visited a few days ago, but I'm forced to search the whole "Last 7 days" entry, which can be quite large, even if I know the precise day. I should add that I have tried and am not interested in the History Submenu add-on for the History menu : there is no per site grouping, and I find navigating in large menus uneasy. Thank you for your assistance !

All Replies (9)

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I don't think it's possible to break up the "Last 7 days" like you describe. However, if you click the Firefox button and then History, and then click "Last 7 days", you will see the following columns by default: Name, Tags, Location. Right click on any of these columns and you will see a menu where you can add more columns -- add Visit Date.

You should now be able to see which date (and time) each page was visited, and you will be able to have more granularity than before.

Hope this helps.

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Thank you for your answer. Yes, it's a start. But I prefer using the sidebar. If that is not possible, should I (can I) turn my question into a suggestion for a future release ?

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You can create a smart bookmark with a place query as the location that shows a specific history time slot.

Example:

  • place:beginTime=1331420400000000&endTime=1331593200000000&sort=1&type=4

See also:


Below is a JavaScript bookmarklet to facilitate in creating such a query.

The dates need to be entered as GMT time strings.
The current date is shown in the prompt and you can edit that value.
You may need to adjust the GMT time to your current time zone.
If you do not see a smart bookmarks item on that query then you need to close and restart Firefox (that may happen on the bookmarks toolbar).


javascript:(function(){var ID='Invalid Date',Q='place:beginTime=!B!&endTime=!E!&sort=1&type=4',b=new Date(),e=new Date(),B,E,X;do{do{X=0;B=b.toUTCString();E=e.toUTCString();if(P=prompt('Place Query\nBegin Date;End Date\n\n'+B+'\n'+E,B+';'+E)){if(/^place:/.test(P)){X=1;if(/beginTime=(\d+)&endTime=(\d+)/.test(P)){b.setTime(RegExp.$1/1E3);e.setTime(RegExp.$2/1E3);P=b.toUTCString()+';'+e.toUTCString()}}}P=P.split(';');b=new Date(P[0]);B=b.getTime()*1E3;e=new Date(P[1]);E=e.getTime()*1E3;}while(X||(P&&(b.toString()==ID || e.toString()==ID)));if(P){P=Q.replace(/!B!/,B).replace(/!E!/,E);}}while(prompt(b.toLocaleString()+'\n'+B+'\n\n'+e.toLocaleString()+'\n'+E+'\n\n'+P,P))})();

Modified by cor-el

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Thank you for your detailed answer. If I understand well, it is definitely not handy though. I need to use that script every time I want to look into the bookmarks, and once for each day. From the web page you linked, it seems it is however possible to give 'beginTime' and 'endTime' relatively to the present day using 'beginTimeRef=1', but since 'beginTime' must be an unsigned value, there is no way to simply request 'yesterday' for example... Plus, if I try to use a simple place query like yours, Firefox tells me it cannot find : jar:file:///C:/Program%20Files/Mozilla%20Firefox/omni.ja!/chrome/browser/content/browser/places/content-ui/controller.xhtml I checked with 7-zip, and the 'content-ui' folder is indeed missing in 'omni.ja'.

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You can only use such a query as a bookmark. If the query isn't working then try a cut and paste in a different folder or try to close and restart Firefox.

Once you have a working query then you should be able to edit that query to keep it working with new parameters.

You can also use the SearchPlaces extension and paste the place query in the search field:

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Close and restart did the trick, thank you. It can even be sorted by website, that is great ! However there is no way to get it to update automatically so that I have a "Yesterday", "2 days ago", ... query, right ? Whatever tool I use, I still need to update it myself. Really, I think the real History could be improved by adding these filters by default.

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You can only do that with an extension that updates the query automatically.

SQLite allow to specify dates like now -1 day, but that hasn't been implemented in the code that converts a place: query to an SQLite query.

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Why can't it be the default behavior of Firefox ? How can one actually use the "Last 7 days" group (let alone the broader ones) efficiently ? I'm curious.

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You can use the last 7 days in the Library and sidebar and sort by visited date, but that doesn't allow to sort by site for a specific day. You can only sort a query from a specific date range that you need to create if Firefox doesn't have it.