Firefox's history system is more capable than just "press Ctrl+H to see where you've been." Here's what's actually useful.
The History Sidebar
Ctrl+H opens history in a sidebar (or new tab). The sidebar view is more useful than the popup — you can keep it open while browsing.
Sort options in the sidebar:
- By Date
- By Site
- By Date and Site (default — organized chronologically then by domain)
- By Last Visited
- By Most Visited
Search in History: Type in the history search box to filter. This searches URLs and page titles — useful for finding "that article about X I read last week."
Searching History from the Address Bar
Type ^ (caret) before your query in the address bar to search only history:
^ react hooks
This limits address bar suggestions to pages in your history matching "react hooks." Much faster than opening the full history panel.
History Retention Settings
Settings → Privacy & Security → History
Firefox will: choose how Firefox handles history — Use custom settings, Remember browsing and download history, Never remember history, or custom.
For custom settings:
- Remember browsing and download history — stores visited URLs
- Remember search and form history — stores text you've typed in forms/search boxes
- Keep cookies until they expire / close Firefox — controls cookies with history
How long Firefox keeps history: Firefox stores history indefinitely by default (until you delete it). There's no built-in "keep N days" setting in the UI. To set a limit, use about:config → places.history.expiration.transient_current_max_pages — though this is about the count, not time.
Searching and Filtering
In the Library (Ctrl+Shift+H), history is searchable and filterable. You can:
- Search by keyword (URL or title)
- Sort by any column (date, title, URL, visit count)
- Filter by date range: Today, Last 7 Days, Last Month, or set a custom date
The Library View
The Library (Ctrl+Shift+H) is the full history interface. It shows:
- All history entries with visit count, last visited date
- Bookmarks in the same interface (both are stored in the same Places database)
Deleting Specific History Entries
Remove a single entry: In the address bar dropdown or history panel, right-click any entry → "Remove from History."
Remove all visits to a site: Library → search for the site → select all matching entries → Delete.
Clear all history for a domain: There's no one-click "clear all history for example.com" in the UI. Workaround: in the Library, search for example.com, select all (Ctrl+A), press Delete.
Keyboard Shortcut for History Within a Tab
If you've navigated forward and back within a tab, long-press the Back or Forward button to see the navigation history for that specific tab. You can jump directly to any page in the tab's history.
Or: Alt+Left (back) and Alt+Right (forward) as keyboard shortcuts.
Clear Recent History
Ctrl+Shift+Delete opens the "Clear Recent History" dialog. You can clear:
- Browsing & Download History
- Cookies and Site Data
- Cache
- Form & Search History
- Temporary Permissions
And set a time range: Last hour, Last two hours, Last four hours, Today, or Everything.
Forgotten Tabs and History Recovery
Closed a tab you needed? Ctrl+Shift+T reopens it. This works for multiple consecutive closes — press it multiple times to reopen tabs in the order they were closed.
For tabs closed more than one session ago: History → Recently Closed Tabs shows tabs closed in the current session plus a configurable amount from previous sessions (browser.sessionstore.max_tabs_undo in about:config — default 25).
Session History vs. Tab History
Important distinction:
-
History panel (
Ctrl+H) — global history of all pages visited across all sessions - Tab navigation history — the back/forward stack for a specific tab, lost when the tab closes
- Session history — the set of tabs open in the last session, restored at startup
For persistent, named session saving (saving specific tab sets to restore later), Firefox's built-in history doesn't cover this. Tab Manager & Session Saver fills this gap — name a set of tabs, save it, restore it any time.
The address bar ^ search shortcut for history is underrated — it's much faster than opening the library when you're trying to find a page you visited recently.
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