Can I delete contents of the history cache?

Question

I was trying to do a poor man's backup of a my wife's root folder (and all it contains) by simply dragging her root folder into a net drive I have mounted. It's worked before. And it's an expedient method until I settle on a real backup app.
Half way through the 50-minute process, the system says that the receiving file system choked on a filename that was too long and (after I ack'd the warning) it aborted the partially completed copy cycle. With some terminal magic I was able to locate the offending file ... just one of many in ~/Library/Caches/Metadata/Safari/History/ having an extremely long file name.
Not knowing how Safari actually manages history references, I avoided the temptation of deleting any of these directly, thinking instead that using Safari's history clearing service would do the trick. .... nah! ...
It does clear "http:" references, but for some reason leaves "https:" references intact. (Go figure???) and a lot of these have names of a greater length than the original file that choked my copy file command.
So I'm back to my temptation of clearing out the whole darn ~/Library/Caches/Metadata/Safari/History/ folder. (1) Is that advisable? (2)If I do that, is there anything else I should do to correctly implement the 'manual' history expulsion? I do not mind permanently losing the ability to restore the history records I'm wiping out?
All I am seeking is the answer to the above two questions.
But my experience does beg the wider question "How does one really completely and effectively delete the entire browsing history? - note: here I just mean return all safari history data storage to the 'available storage heap' .... don't even need to securely erase it (though this might be useful too), I just don't want it to be inside my wife's storage hierarchy anymore, so I can get on with my 'easy' backup hack.
Message was edited by: fiddleaway

Answer 1

Hi
...clearing out the whole darn ~/Library/Caches/Metadata/Safari/History/ folder.
1) Is that advisable?
it's no great loss - although it contains not actual history, but data about it, Meaning you can lose that folder entirely & not see any change in Safari's record of where you've been.
(2)If I do that, is there anything else I should do to correctly implement the 'manual' history expulsion?
No, just do it while Safari's quit - or occasionally the app might write the file again.
"How does one really completely and effectively delete the entire browsing history?
everything in the Safari folder less bookmarks;
Home/Library/Caches/Metadata/Safari/;
~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari;
~/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/;
~/Library/Cookies/
would be a good start