Helping people with computers... one answer at a time.
We'll look at a few ways that might be possible, but unlikely, to undelete the History.
I was wondering if IE's "History" (using CTRL-H) can be retrieved on my computer somewhere once it's been deleted. Or once it's deleted is it gone? Can you please let me know if I can retrieve the deleted history?
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In short - probably not. There are a couple of approaches that might work, if you're lucky, and perhaps desperate enough.
First, we need to locate where the history is kept.
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For Windows XP, Internet Explorer's history is kept in a per-user directory underneath "\Documents and Settings". Assuming a default location, that would be:
c:\Documents and Settings\Username\Local Settings\History
"Username" would be replaced by your login user name. So mine, for example, would be "c:\Documents and Settings\LeoN\Local Settings\History".
Note: the "History" directory is marked "invisible" by default, so it's likely that you won't find it by default. You'll need to enable viewing hidden files in Windows Explorer, or searching for Hidden Files when you perform a search. In a Command Prompt, you can simply "CD" to it, even if you don't see it.
The easiest way is to simply recover the contents of that directory, including all subdirectories, from a recent backup. If you've been making regular backups of your full system, as recommended, then you can simply use your backup utility to restore only those directories, after which you should be able to restart IE and have the old history restored.
Alternately, and with an even lower chance of success is to see if you can "undelete" an older version of the files found in that directory. If you get very lucky you might be able to undelete or recover a file that has the history you want. I do not recommend this approach, simply because the chances of it working are so very low.
Ultimately, I believe that the chances for successfully recovering this data is so low, that it is effectively zero.
I will throw out one last approach - but it's expensive, potentially time consuming, and really only for the most dire of circumstances. It is sometimes possible, using advanced data recovery techniques, for a data recovery service to recover this type of data. You'd be sending them your hard disk, and you'd be writing a fairly large check. There are many factors involved, and it's definitely not as easy as you might see on TV, but it can, sometimes, be done.
Article C2543 - February 4, 2006
Leo A. Notenboom has been playing with computers since he
was required to take a programming class in 1976. An 18 year career as a programmer at Microsoft soon followed.
After "retiring" in 2001, Leo started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place for answers
to common computer and technical questions. More about Leo.
hello!! thanks for your help already. how can i view the history on the computer if the history has been deleted. i want to see what sites my kids have been viewing but when i get on the computer they have deleted the history.
Posted by: amy at April 8, 2010 10:33 AMHelp, I accidentally deleted my history and lost my bookmark on mozilla firefox. Is there any way I could get it back? Thank you.
Posted by: yan at May 7, 2010 4:50 AMIf you have already logged off the computer you are using, the history is not available to retrievem but if you are currently still logged on, it is possible to get the history contents back.
Posted by: Abbie at October 7, 2011 1:55 AMCan I recover internet history if the account setting on the firefox browser was set to "never remember history"? If so, how?
10-Nov-2011
how about for windows 7?? thx!
18-Dec-2011