I know that Safari's "History" list is in reverse order, that is, most recently visited sites at the top of the list. How can I find the time a particular site was visited?
MacBook, Mac OS X (10.6.8)
As of Safari 5.1.7 there does not appear to be a way to view the time in the browser, but it is still possbile to find from the raw history file. Open /Users/[yourusername]/library/Safari/History.plist in a text editor. Depending on how your text editor reads the file, you may see a lot of garbled text, but you should still be able to find the URL that you want the time for. After the URL you may see the page's title, but should also see a left square bracket followed by numbers.
Example:
_?http://www.apple.com/_Apple[377832904.6o
The integer is an Apple timestamp (number of seconds since 00:00:00 UTC on 1 January 2001). Find a timestamp calculator online to get the actual time for your timestamp. In the example above, Apple was visited on Dec 21 2012 at 17:35:04 PST.
Cheers.
As of Safari 5.1.7 there does not appear to be a way to view the time in the browser, but it is still possbile to find from the raw history file. Open /Users/[yourusername]/library/Safari/History.plist in a text editor. Depending on how your text editor reads the file, you may see a lot of garbled text, but you should still be able to find the URL that you want the time for. After the URL you may see the page's title, but should also see a left square bracket followed by numbers.
Example:
_?http://www.apple.com/_Apple[377832904.6o
The integer is an Apple timestamp (number of seconds since 00:00:00 UTC on 1 January 2001). Find a timestamp calculator online to get the actual time for your timestamp. In the example above, Apple was visited on Dec 21 2012 at 17:35:04 PST.
Cheers.
The problem with that is, for me at least, is that Parental controls are very inconsistent and buggy, and don't show the history from the last 2 months. I periodically refresh by making a new user account (and transfer the data files from the old one manually),and the parental controls work well for some time, but eventually become corrupt. Very poor performance on Parental controls.
Not possible to see when a site was visited time wise.
You can see "last visited today" by clicking the Bookmarks icon then select History under Collections.
Thanks for trying, Carolyn. I do have the history list - just trying to figure out the time a particular item in the history was accessed. I actually did find the time on one machine but not another. On my MacBook Pro (10.6.8) I entered the name of the website (yahoo.com) in the Spotlight Search, then chose "Show All." That produced a Finder window which listed all three yahoo sites I'd visited - the main site, the search string and the search results, with a time stamp for each. However, when I tried to do the same thing on a MacBook with the same operating system, no such results appeared. I checked the Spotlight preferences and found that "webpages" was indeed enabled. Yet still no similar results.
My problem was resolved thanks to Parental Controls. Since I had parental controls on the child's account, I was able to log into the admin account and use the "Websites Visited" log in the Parental Controls System Preference to find the date and time the particular site was accessed.
That's great RESTech --
Really glad to know Parental Controls work so well!
I just did this on OS X Lion 10.8.5, you go to finder look for this directory /Users/[yourUsername]/Library/Caches/Metadata/Safari then you're gonna findHistory folder which is where your histories located. Then you arrange it by date. When you find the site you want to look for the date was accessed, you just go to "Get Info".
good luck 😉
Thanks for the tip ettozyame! That's much easier than trying to convert Apple timestamps one by one - such a timesaver!
ettozyame wrote:
I just did this on OS X Lion 10.8.5, you go to finder look for this directory /Users/[yourUsername]/Library/Caches/Metadata/Safari then you're gonna findHistory folder which is where your histories located. Then you arrange it by date. When you find the site you want to look for the date was accessed, you just go to "Get Info".
good luck 😉
Thanks - worked well - I had to be sure the "view" was on the 2nd or 4th one, to show the date - Too bad it is this difficult - Firefox shows the date in the history list on the browser. I still like Safari better - just sayin'
I don't see the Metadata folder in my Username/Library/Caches folder. I don't see anything for Safari really under anything...can anyone help?
Not sure if all recent versions of Spotlight have the same facility but, in the current version and with Yosemite, you can use Spotlight. Search the site name (or a distinguishable part of the name) and, at the bottom of the Spotlight list, click onto 'Show all in Finder'. The window opened will normally have a 'Date Last Opened' column but, if not showing, you can add a 'Date Created' column by clicking on the finder 'View' menu, pulling down to 'Show View Options' and ticking the 'Date Created' box. Sounds much more complicated than it actually is.
Any idea why mine only gives me today's? I checked my Safari preferences and it holds one month of history.
Hmm. Trying to get one of these tips to work.
Found an malicious download on a Mac and trying to track down how it got there.
https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/e7d2a3602f39d4cdacddf56432482275ac6185d440618 cd41691ccb2181c1846/analysis/is the download, which is infected with the Bundlore malware.
Here's what I figured out so far: Finder Info shows (under More info):
Where from: http://cdn.downloads-free-video.com/download/Mac/setup.dmg/?software=downloader& name=Setup.exe&clickid=22484897226853631&appid=778, http://www.zdurnalab.info/mac/178/v10/?did=mobit2&sub=w8VA26EHS2MTBFQL0OSGJLDI
Searching Safari history shows
http://www.zdurnalab.info/mac/178/v10/?did=mobit2&sub=w8VA26EHS2MTBFQL0OSGJLDI
was visited 2 days ago.
But ~/Library/Safari/History.plist doesn't contain the strings zdurnalab, downloads-free-video, or Downloader!
Looking through results of
open ~/Library/Caches/Metadata/Safari/History/
AHA! SOLVED! User was on that famous pirate ship torrent website (currently in the .la TLD); it served up the malware via an ad.
Ooh, think I found a security hole in Spotlight / Quickview ?! Got me an 0day? A mere Quickview shouldn't cause Safari to download a file. Good thing I always disable [Open "safe" files after downloading] in Safari (General tab).
... to be continued/edited!
It looks like Safari no longer uses/updates that file -History.plist. It was last edited in March. Looks like Safari is using other files now - History.db, History.db-wal (??), and HistoryIndex.sk
Got the same one on mine. I opened a photo of a tree for a landscape design. This is the second time for zdurnalab. I was so mad, that I stayed up all night looking for a way to get out of it. I knew what time it happen, so I deleted the history, emptied the trash, and I'm back up and running. Thank you MrElvey!!!
How can I find the time a site was accessed in Safari's history?
