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How do I prevent Safari from deleting history?

Intelligent

Intelligent

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 7, 2013
922
2
Argh! :mad: I chose in the settings that i will delete history manually, but everyday it deletes my oldest history, for example todays oldest is august 1, but tomorrow it will be august 2, i hate it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Last edited:
For what possible reason would you want browsing history from back in August last year for?

Either way, make sure you do have it set to manual & make sure you are viewing all the history items & there isn't more further back.
 
AndyK said:
For what possible reason would you want browsing history from back in August last year for?

Either way, make sure you do have it set to manual & make sure you are viewing all the history items & there isn't more further back.
Click to expand...


Why not? I already said in the main post i have it delete manually and i am scrolling down to the absolute bottom, and i check everyday to see that, it goes from may 28 to may 29 etc.
 
Intelligent said:
Why not? I already said in the main post i have it delete manually and i am scrolling down to the absolute bottom, and i check everyday to see that, it goes from may 28 to may 29 etc.
Click to expand...

A screenshot would help to figure this out.
 
Intelligent said:
Why not? I already said in the main post i have it delete manually and i am scrolling down to the absolute bottom, and i check everyday to see that, it goes from may 28 to may 29 etc.
Click to expand...

How much storage do you have left on your computer?
Have you tried changing it to Manually and then restarting Safari? I know you changed it but have you tried restarting it?
Maybe try restarting your computer - doubt this will help
 
AndyK said:
A screenshot would help to figure this out.
Click to expand...

A screenshot of what?
saberahul said:
How much storage do you have left on your computer?
Have you tried changing it to Manually and then restarting Safari? I know you changed it but have you tried restarting it?
Maybe try restarting your computer - doubt this will help
Click to expand...

I have 50GB left so thats not the problem i will try chaining to 1 year, restarting then chaining back.
 
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So i tried resetting all of my safari preferences but no matter what it keeps deleting it, i really want this fixed.
 
I expect that you have some OTHER setting that removes your history, perhaps each time you reboot your Mac, or simply each time you relaunch Safari, and some period of time has passed since the last time you opened Safari.
If you set it for One Year, or some other real interval, you can monitor that the history continues to accumulate.
The "manual" history setting may even have a bug, where it might assume that some system event triggers your so-called "manual" history setting, etc.
Leave it on some real interval other than "manual", and watch if the history is maintained during that period. You will likely be able to verify that within a few days.
 
Gregg2 said:
Well now, that really didn't answer the question, did it?
Click to expand...

Well, no. But i like keeping history? I like calculating stats for which websites i have visited the most etc. I just like having it there.
 
This may not be "the best way" to do it, but it should work.

Go to your
home/Library/Safari
folder, and copy the file named "History.plist" to some OTHER LOCATION (desktop might be a good enough place).

This will keep a record of the history, but actually viewing it and making sense out of it can be a different prospect altogether.

You can open History.plist with a text editor, and manage to "pull out" the saved URLs.

I believe you can also open and view it with Property List Editor Pro.

But as others have mentioned above, this really doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Old versions of the history should be left to..... history....
 
I know this is an old thread but did anyone ever figure out a solution?

I'm on Mojave and I have Safari history to clear *manually*. But as of today (8/29/20), it only goes back to 2/4/20. And tomorrow, it'll only go back to 2/5/20, and so forth, which is bizarre because it doesn't match any of the other choices. I even tried setting it to "Clear History after...1 year" to test but it continues to clear after...what? Something like 6 months 20 days? And resetting it back to "Clear History...manually" doesn't make any difference.
 
This thread is asking about how to "prevent Safari from deleting history".
The answers in this thread are still a bit confusing to me.
Is that actually what YOU want? (Prevent Safari from deleting history)
Or --- do you want ALL history to delete when you clear it manually?
What happens if you choose "Clear History..." from Safari's History menu? (Be cautious if that is not what you want, it WILL delete all your history)

Another question - would using a "private window" when browsing do the job for you (private window in Safari does not keep a history) ?
 
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