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How do I prevent Firefox from becoming unresponsive when I try to clear all my browser & download history?

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When I attempt to clear ALL my browser & downloading history, Firefox freezes up and I have to force quit it. I haven't manually cleared my history in about a year. I cleared all my cookies, cache, and form & search history with no problem at all. I'm on Mac OS X 10

When I attempt to clear ALL my browser & downloading history, Firefox freezes up and I have to force quit it. I haven't manually cleared my history in about a year. I cleared all my cookies, cache, and form & search history with no problem at all. I'm on Mac OS X 10

All Replies (4)

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I'm not surprised it takes a long time to clear history. How long have you let it run before giving up and using force quit?

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Apart from that the fact that clearing a large amount of history can take a while, when you force quit Firefox, you run the risk of corrupting the data in your profile folder.

To get rid of all your history,

  1. Create a manual backup of your bookmarks.
  2. Open your profile folder.
  3. Quit Firefox.
  4. Rename the places.sqlite file in your profile folder to places.sqlite-old
  5. Restore the bookmarks you backed up earlier (detailed directions are in the same article in the first step).
  6. If everything went well, delete the places.sqlite-old file.
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I followed your instructions Gingerbread Man & I think it worked...the only thing different was my bookmarks weren't removed, so I didn't have to restore them. I cleared my browsing history as a test afterward & it worked fine. Thank you!