What clearing history does and why you might want to

Clearing your history in Mozilla Firefox removes the record of websites you have visited, searches you have made, and files you have downloaded. Firefox stores this information locally on your computer so it can show you suggestions when you type in the address bar and let you revisit sites quickly. Clearing it does not affect your files, passwords, or bookmarks — only the trail of where you have been.

You might clear history for privacy within your household, to free up a small amount of storage space, or before selling or giving away a computer. It is worth knowing that clearing history does not hide your activity from your internet service provider or your employer if you are using a work network — it only removes the record from your own browser.

Key Takeaways

  • You can clear all history at once or choose a specific time range — the last hour, day, week, or custom dates.
  • Firefox lets you select what to clear: history, cookies, cached images, or all of them together.
  • The keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+Delete (Windows) or Command+Shift+Delete (Mac) opens the clear history window directly.
  • Clearing history does not remove saved passwords, bookmarks, or autofill information unless you specifically choose to clear those too.

Clearing all your history at once

Open Firefox and press Ctrl+Shift+Delete on Windows, or Command+Shift+Delete on Mac. A window titled "Clear Recent History" will appear. At the top, you will see a dropdown that says "Time range to clear" — it is set to "Everything" by default, which removes your entire history.

Below that dropdown, you will see checkboxes for what to clear. "Browsing & read history" is checked by default. Leave it checked, then click the "Clear Now" button at the bottom right. Firefox will remove the record of every site you have visited and every file you have downloaded.

Clearing history from a specific time period

If you only want to remove recent history — say, the last few hours or the last day — use the "Time range to clear" dropdown instead of selecting "Everything." Click the dropdown and choose "Last Hour," "Last 2 Hours," "Last 4 Hours," "Last 24 Hours," or "Last 7 Days."

If none of those match what you need, select "Custom" and enter the exact start and end dates you want to clear. This is useful if you want to keep older history but remove something from a specific day. Once you have set the time range, make sure "Browsing & read history" is checked and click "Clear Now."

Choosing what types of data to clear

The "Clear Recent History" window shows several checkboxes. By default, only "Browsing & read history" is checked. If you want to clear other data at the same time, check the boxes next to what you want removed:

  • Cookies and Site Data — removes login sessions and preferences stored by websites. Checking this will log you out of most sites.
  • Cached Web Content — removes temporary copies of images and files Firefox saved to load pages faster. This frees up some disk space.
  • Offline Web Content and User Data — removes data stored by websites that work offline. Most people do not need to clear this.

Leave unchecked anything you want to keep. For example, if you only want to remove your browsing history but stay logged into your email, uncheck "Cookies and Site Data" and leave only "Browsing & read history" checked.

What does not get cleared

Clearing history does not touch your saved passwords, even if you clear cookies. If you want to remove a saved password, you have to do that separately. Go to the menu button (three horizontal lines) in the top right, select "Settings," then "Privacy & Security," then scroll down to "Passwords" and click "Saved Logins." Find the password you want to remove and click the X next to it.

Your bookmarks, autofill information, and browser extensions also stay in place when you clear history. If you want to remove those, you have to delete them individually or reset Firefox entirely, which is a different process.

Setting Firefox to clear history automatically

If you want Firefox to clear your history every time you close the browser, you can set that up in Settings. Click the menu button (three horizontal lines) in the top right, select "Settings," then go to "Privacy & Security" on the left side.

Under "History," you will see a dropdown that says "Firefox will." Change it to "Use custom settings for history." A new set of options will appear. Check the box that says "Clear history when Firefox closes." Now every time you close Firefox completely, your browsing history, cookies, and cached files will be removed automatically. You can choose which types of data to clear by checking or unchecking the boxes below that option.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does clearing history delete my saved passwords?

No. Clearing history removes only your browsing record, downloads, and optionally cookies and cached files. Your saved passwords stay in Firefox unless you delete them separately through Settings > Privacy & Security > Passwords.

Will clearing history speed up Firefox?

Clearing cached web content removes temporary files and may free up a small amount of disk space, but it will not noticeably speed up Firefox itself. Clearing browsing history has almost no effect on performance.

Can someone recover my history after I clear it?

Once you clear history in Firefox, it is removed from your computer. However, your internet service provider and any websites you visited still have records of your activity. Clearing local history does not hide your browsing from ISPs or networks.

What is the difference between clearing history and private browsing?

Private browsing (Ctrl+Shift+P) prevents Firefox from saving history while you browse — nothing is recorded in the first place. Clearing history removes what has already been saved. Private browsing is useful if you want to browse without leaving a record; clearing history is useful after the fact.