Opera is storing history for years, but only last 3 months are accessible in history manager

[steaua10]

steaua10 last edited by

My Opera is storing history for more than 5 years, but only last 3 months are accessible in the history manager (opera://history/).
As of 25 November, anything before 27 August in the history is not visible, accessible, although I didn't deleted it.

Meanwhile my history storage file in \AppData\Roaming\Opera Software\Opera Stable has 35 MB !

[leocg]

leocg Moderator Volunteer @steaua10 last edited by

@steaua10 Yes, Chromium has a 90 days limit for history.

[Heinrich-Lunge]

Heinrich-Lunge @leocg last edited by

@leocg Is it possible to view history older than 90 days?

[leocg]

leocg Moderator Volunteer @Heinrich-Lunge last edited by

@heinrich-lunge Not that I know.

[burnout426]

burnout426 Volunteer @Heinrich-Lunge last edited by

@heinrich-lunge said in Opera is storing history for years, but only last 3 months are accessible in history manager:

Is it possible to view history older than 90 days?

The short answer is no, not in Opera. But, there's a longer answer.

You might be able to find a Chromium History file viewer to just view the history in Opera's History file in Opera's profile folder (goto the URL opera://about for the profile path). Before downloading and installing one though, research whether it's legit and safe or not. Utilities at https://www.nirsoft.net/ are safe, but you might have to temporarily disable real-time protection in your anti-virus settings when downloading and running them, as tools on that site are often flagged as unwanted / malicious when they're not in this case (because you're the one using them and it's okay if you steal your own history).

For advanced users, there's a tiny chance that you can see your older Opera history entries in Vivaldi, if you want to try:

Before you start, in Windows Explorer, you'll want to click "View", check "show hidden files", and uncheck "hide file extensions" before trying to view the paths mentioned below.

Vivaldi, which is also Chromium-based, has a "Save browsing history" drop-down setting at the URL vivaldi://settings/privacy that allows you to set history retention to "Forever". If you set it to forever, goto the URL vivaldi://about, take note of the "profile" path, close Vivaldi, and open the "Preferences" file in the profile folder with JSONedit in tree mode, you will see root/vivaldi/history/days_to_keep_visits (of type integer) that's set to 3650.

While both Opera and Vivaldi are closed, you could delete everything in Vivaldi's profile folder (except the "Default" folder, but delete everything in the "Default" folder), copy over Opera's profile and cache folders and files to the right place in Vivaldi's User Data and profile ("Default") folders, edit the "Preferences" file in Vivaldi's "Default" folder with JSONedit, add the "vivaldi" object as a child of root, add the "history" object as a child of the "vivaldi" object, add the "days_to_keep_visits" integer as a child of the "history" object, set "days_to_keep_visits" to 3650, and save your changes.

Then, when you start Vivaldi, if you're lucky, you'll be able to goto the URL vivaldi://history and see all your older history.

In Opera's cache path at "C:\Users\yourusername\AppData\Local\Opera Software\Opera Stable", the "Cache" folder get's copied to "C:\Users\yourusername\AppData\Local\Vivaldi\User Data\Default"

In Opera's profile path, all the following folders and files (skip ones that aren't present in Opera's profile folder) get copied to "C:\Users\yourusername\AppData\Local\Vivaldi\User Data".

CrashpadMetrics-active.pma
Crowd Deny
DesktopSharingHub
FileTypePolicies
First Run
FirstPartySetsPreloaded
Floc
GrShaderCache
hyphen-data
Last Browser
Last Version
Local State
lockfile
MEIPreload
Module Info Cache
Notification Resources
OnDeviceHeadSuggestModel
OptimizationHints
OriginTrials
persisted_first_party_sets.json
PKIMetadata
Safe Browsing
Safe Browsing Cookies
Safe Browsing Cookies-journal
SafetyTips
ShaderCache
SSLErrorAssistant
Subresource Filter
TLSDeprecationConfig
UrlParamClassifications
Variations
Webstore Downloads
WidevineCdm
ZxcvbnData

All the remaining folders and files (like the "Preferences" file) in the following list (skip ones that Opera doesn't have) get copied to "C:\Users\yourusername\AppData\Local\Vivaldi\User Data\Default" where you can then edit the "Preferences file.

AdBlockRules
AdBlockState
AdBlockState.bak
Affiliation Database
Affiliation Database-journal
AutofillStrikeDatabase
blob_storage
Bookmarks
Bookmarks.bak
BudgetDatabase
Cache (already done in first copy step)
Calendar
Calendar-journal
Code Cache
Contacts
Contacts-journal
contextmenu.bak
contextmenu.json
coupon_db
databases
data_reduction_proxy_leveldb
Download Service
DownloadMetadata
Extension Cookies
Extension Cookies-journal
Extension Rules
Extension Scripts
Extension State
Extensions
Favicons
Favicons-journal
Feature Engagement Tracker
File System
GCM Store
GPUCache
heavy_ad_intervention_opt_out.db
heavy_ad_intervention_opt_out.db-journal
History
History-journal
IndexedDB
JumpListIconsRecentClosed
JumpListIconsVivaldiSpeedDials
Local App Settings
Local Extension Settings
Local Storage
LOCK
LOG
LOG.old
Login Data
Login Data-journal
Mail
MailDB
MailDB-journal
mainmenu.bak
mainmenu.json
Managed Extension Settings
Media History
Media History-journal
Network
Network Action Predictor
Network Action Predictor-journal
Notes
Notes.bak
optimization_guide_hint_cache_store
optimization_guide_model_metadata_store
Platform Notifications
Preferences
PreferredApps
README
Safe Browsing Network
Secure Preferences
Segmentation Platform
Service Worker
Session Storage
Sessions
shared_proto_db
Shortcuts
Shortcuts-journal
Site Characteristics Database
Storage
Sync App Settings
Sync Data
Sync Extension Settings
Top Sites
Top Sites-journal
Trusted Vault
VideoDecodeStats
Visited Links
Vivaldi Profile.ico
VivaldiThumbnails
Web Applications
Web Data
Web Data-journal
WebStorage

In short, the idea is to set Vivaldi's history saving to "forever" and then replace Vivaldi's "History" file in its profile folder with a copy of the "History" file in Opera's profile folder. You can try that first if you want (with a copy of Opera's "History" file) to see if you can get away with not doing all the copying listed above. If that doesn't work though, and Opera's History file is not readable by Vivaldi, try again, but this time, also replace Vivaldi's "Local State" file with Opera's. If that doesn't work, try replacing the files once more, but this time, also replace Vivaldi's "Secure Preferences" file with Opera's. If all else fails, do the full copying of all of Opera's profile and cache files and folders to Vivaldi's. Maybe you'll get lucky.

[seriousgigi]

seriousgigi @burnout426 last edited by

@burnout426 i used chrome history viewer but it also shows only 3 months.

[mmkabeer]

mmkabeer @burnout426 last edited by

@burnout426 opera history

[theintel]

theintel @burnout426 last edited by

@burnout426 The Nirsoft tool worked fine. But it also showed history of the past 90 days. Did Opera limited history storing to 90 days?

[burnout426]

burnout426 Volunteer @theintel last edited by

@theintel Chromium limits history to the past 3 months. Since Opera uses Chromium, it also has that limit.