Searching Safari History

In safari, when I choose "Show All History" from the History menu, and then type a phrase in the search box, I'm not sure how it works. Let's say I type "That's Entertainment" (without the quotes). Does it search only for the pages in my history that have that exact phrase, or does it search for pages that have both words somewhere on the page? It seems to do the latter, which is kind of worthless. Is there a way to force it to search for the phrase? I tried putting quotes around the phrase, and it returned 176 matches instead of 182 matches without the quotes, so it is obviously not searching for the phrase only. It seems to be searching for pages with the word That's, the word Entertainment, and a quote mark somewhere on the page.

Greetings,
Safari searches for any match of the text you type, not phrases. So the more specific you are in what you're looking for, the more you can narrow down your search results to the one(s) you want.
You can't alter this behavior.

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Search Safari History iOS 7

Is there a way to search my browsing history in Safari? iOS 7, iPad 3.
I know I visited a page last week... I should have bookmarked it, but didn't.
Thanks.

When you type in the address bar on iPad (or iPhone), Safari is searching your history for matches. I believe it uses both the title of the web page and the URL stored in history. It does not save the full contents of web pages in history, so there is no way for it to search that.
Note that in Private Browsing mode, history (and bookmarks) are not searched when typing into the address bar, so you need to disable Private Browsing mode in order to get the benefits of history search.

Can I search Safari history in Time Machine

I was wanting to find a site I visited a couple months ago. Does Time Machine back that up? If so, how would I go about finding it? Where is the history saved - like a specific folder?

You cannot directly browse previous history versions, but you can restore a previous history then look at what Safari remembers (e.g. restore this history file for a month ago, then relaunch Safari and see what's in your menu. Rinse, repeat until you find the sites you're after
The history data is stored in ~/Library/Safari/History.plist so that's what you want to restore via Time Machine.

Search syntax for Safari history? how to remove items from specific pages?

I'm using Safari 5.0.3 and I prefer keeping the browsing history quite long for accessing contents I had been searching in the net some weeks ago.
However, that way I'm collecting lots of clutter and therefore I'd like to remove selected entries from the history, e. g. from the page where I'm reading daily news etc.
I tried to use the search field (accessible with Cmd-F in the history view) to search for parts of the corresponding web address, e. g. "http://www.heute.de", but I do not only get the history items from that site but many others from google and other pages.
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Hi beckmart
there might be ready-made apps or add-ons to do that - but this may help...
quit safari, open Home/Library/Safari/History.plist using PrefSetter
enter the url you want removed in the search box, no need for quotes - say www.google.com
expand the 'web history dates' section at left to see individual results, then select the first one & shift-click the last (don't use select all) to highlight/select all the results - then press the delete key to remove them. Then save the file.
Naturally, a backup copy of history.plist would be wise - but the above seems to work very well.

Safari Search Term History

I am trying to view a history of my Safari web searches on the iPhone. I see how to view the history of web pages viewed, but I want to see a history of the actual searches. Is there a way to retrieve this?

The history spotlight metadata is located in the ~/library/cache/metadata/Safari/history folder. Deleting it should stop spotlight from picking it up. I don't know an easier way though. You would also end up deleting more recent items.

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Screenshots in cover flow of Safari history are empty. Whereas all history is visible. Why? Who knows?

Please read this whole message before doing anything.
This procedure is a test, not a solution. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.
Step 1
The purpose of this step is to determine whether the problem is localized to your user account.
Enable guest logins* and log in as Guest. For instructions, launch the System Preferences application, select Help from the menu bar, and enter “Set up guest users” (without the quotes) in the search box. Don't use the Safari-only “Guest User” login created by “Find My Mac.”
While logged in as Guest, you won’t have access to any of your personal files or settings. Applications will behave as if you were running them for the first time. Don’t be alarmed by this; it’s normal. If you need any passwords or other personal data in order to complete the test, memorize, print, or write them down before you begin.
Test while logged in as Guest. Same problem?
After testing, log out of the guest account and, in your own account, disable it if you wish. Any files you created in the guest account will be deleted automatically when you log out of it.
*Note: If you’ve activated “Find My Mac” or FileVault, then you can’t enable the Guest account. The “Guest User” login created by “Find My Mac” is not the same. Create a new account in which to test, and delete it, including its home folder, after testing.
Step 2
The purpose of this step is to determine whether the problem is caused by third-party system modifications that load automatically at startup or login.
Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed for the test, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards. Boot in safe mode* and log in to the account with the problem. The instructions provided by Apple are as follows:
Shut down your computer, wait 30 seconds, and then hold down the shift key while pressing the power button.
When you see the gray Apple logo, release the shift key.
If you are prompted to log in, type your password, and then hold down the shift key again as you click Log in.
Safe mode is much slower to boot and run than normal, and some things won’t work at all, including wireless networking on certain Macs. The next normal boot may also be somewhat slow.
The login screen appears even if you usually log in automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.
*Note: If FileVault is enabled, or if a firmware password is set, or if the boot volume is a software RAID, you can’t boot in safe mode.
Test while in safe mode. Same problem?
After testing, reboot as usual (i.e., not in safe mode) and verify that you still have the problem. Post the results of steps 1 and 2.

Opening safari history gives prompt that says I am opening an application.

I think this happened after 10.5.2. When I do a search in spotlight, I get a bunch of safari history items (which I wish I could turn off). If I click on one of them, I get a warning telling me that I am about to open an application. I never got this before the 10.5.2 update.
Anybody else notice this?
Mark

I turned off webpages in the preferences and I still get safari history and bookmarks in the results. And I did a quick check were I searched for the same item with the preference turned on and then off and I got the exact amount of results. I don't think that preference is working or, I don't understand it.
Those files that say they are apps are located in Library/Caches/Metadata/Safari/History.
I'm tempted to trash the spotlight preference file and see if this fixes it...
Mark

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PITA isn't it! AFAIK, they're webhistory, but can't be deleted from a search. If you want to report this issue to Apple's engineering, send a bug report or an enhancement request via its Bug Reporter system. To do this, join the Mac Developer Program—it's free and available for all Mac users and gets you a look at some development software. Since you already have an Apple username/ID, use that. Once a member, go to Apple BugReporter and file your bug report or enhancement request. The nice thing with this procedure is that you get a response and a follow-up number; thus, starting a dialog with engineering.
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You're both using the same Apple ID for iCloud, & one of the things you can keep in sync is Safari history/tabs on all of the devices that use the same Apple ID for iCloud. Read here:
http://www.apple.com/icloud/features/#safari

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Sorry, need to make this clearer. If you have discussions.apple.com in your history and start entering this to the search field with caps lock on, it will not populate the search field automatically. If the caps lock is off, it will.

How do I retrieve my cleared safari history on iphone?

How do I retrieve my cleared safari history on iphone? I accidentally clicked clear cookies and data as well, so everything is basically gone and there are very important stuff that I NEED to recover. I tried to do the settings>safari>adavanced>website data, but nothing worked, because since I cleared cookies as well, everything's just gone.

You restore the phone using a backup made before you cleared it. If you don't have a backup from when it was present, then it's gone.

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I upgraded to Mountain Lion on Saturday October 13th. I then ran software updates, and got everything up to date. I was home alone, and the only thing I went to YouTube for was to get guidance for setting up Facebook and Twitter notifications. That's it. Today, using spotlight, some Safari History Items appeared for October 13th, 2012 for sites I haven't visited in years. However, none of them show up in my Safari Histroy. What gives?
Please help! I'm being accused of looking at inappropriate material when I didn't.
I'm at a loss to explain what really happened. Any concrete help will be greatly appreciated

Triple-click the line below to select it:
~/Library/Caches/Metadata/Safari/History
Right-click or control-click the highlighted line and select Services ▹ Open from the contextual menu. Delete the contents of the folder that opens. Quit and relaunch Safari.

ICloud Safari History not syncing across my devices with Yosemite and iOS 8

I have a MacBook Pro with the latest update of Yosemite installed, an iPad 2 with iOS 8.1.1, an iPhone 6 with iOS 8.1.1 and other things seem to be syncing like my bookmarks, reading list, and all other iCloud data as well as iMessages and text messages. But the one thing that does not seem to be syncing is my browsing history in Safari. This is supposed to be a new feature of Yosemite and iOS 8 and it is working for a friend of mine but not me.
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I spoke with Apple support again this weekend. The first support specialist told me that Safari browsing history was not a feature at this time. When I sent a screenshot of the notes of what updated in Safari 8.0.2 on December 11, 2014 from the AppStore, I got transferred to a senior support specialist. They had me try things like log out of icloud and then reset my network settings on my devices. But that unfortunately did not work. My next step which I did not have time to do, is to see if it is my iCloud account by creating a new iCloud account, logging out of iCloud and then resetting my network settings and then logging into iCloud with the new iCloud account and see if Safari history syncs.
I'm not sure what they will do for me if it is my iCloud account because I have so much on that account and have email addresses that I don't want to lose. And if it isn't the iCloud account they said it is probably my devices but I am not sure what they will have me do to try to fix it if it is. Set them up as new? I don't really want to do that, it takes forever to get everything back on the device.

Safari history - how to restore from Time Capsule?

Background...
I couldn't open Safari today (beachballing with no window opening whatsoever), presumed the "com.apple.Safari.plist" file was corrupted so deleted it from "~/Library/Preferences", and restored a copy using Time Machine from my Time Capsule from yesterday before I had the issue. Safari settings from yesterday restored and working.
However...
My Safari History going back 2 years has deleted to just one month ago! How can I restore these from a previous Time Capsule backup? Is it just "History.plist" file from "~/Library/Safari" that needs to be restored, or also the one titled "HistoryIndex.sk" in the same location, and/or any others?
Also, do I need to restart machine after restoring all files needed, or should the history show immediately after just relaunching Safari?
Note: I tried doing the "History.plist" one only, yet still just get the one month of history showing. This is really urgent as I have sites in my 2 year browsing history I need to get to again!
Help very very gratefully received :-\

jimthing wrote:
Though I am still finding that with circa 2 years worth of history, they may be starting to delete from the back-end after a while; so I presume there may be a theoretical max amount of sites and/or dates Safari will keep in there regardless of setting "Manually" for history deletion.
I doubt there's a maximum size specific to the History plist, but that (or corruption of it) would be the only limitation. And yes, plists do get corrupted with some frequency.
And I don't know, either, what would happen if the plist got to a maximum; whether you'd get a message, or it would drop the oldest entries.
That must be a huge+ file after 2 years! It's a bit surprising that it hasn't gotten corrupted before.
If your browsing history is that important, I'd suggest finding some other way to keep it that long, such as bookmarking the critical sites. That would take much less room (and be less subject to corruption) than the history of every site you've ever visited, every time.
And/or, there might be a 3rd-party app that would help. I don't know of any, but it might be worthwhile to look for one.

Searching Safari History

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