How to Recover Deleted History on Mac Google Chrome or Safari

Sue Wayne

Dec 16, 2024 • Filed to: Solve Mac Problems • Proven solutions

Can browsing history be recovered once it is deleted?

The Internet browsing or search history on your Mac browser is probably the one thing that you do not care a lot about and neither does anyone else. We do not think twice before deleting our Internet history from Safari or Google Chrome, do we? However, this is not the best thing to do.

How many times has it happened that you forgot a particular website that you visited, but there was no way to know what it was since you deleted your search history? More than a few times at least. There are times when you may want to see what someone was doing on a Mac by checking the Internet browser history, and many other things. The bottom line is if the Chrome or Safari history is deleted, can you recover deleted history on Google Chrome or Safari? Here we will give you an answer about how to recover deleted Internet history on Mac.

You can recover deleted Internet history on Mac, and there are no complicated steps involved in this! Let us go ahead and see some of the easiest and most effective ways on how to recover deleted Internet history on Mac. Before we move ahead, it is essential to know that Internet history is stored on your Mac hard drive. So recovering the Internet history is like recovering data on Mac including Mac photo recovery or Mac file recovery.

Method 1. Recover Deleted Chrome History with Google My Activity

Google My Activity is able to uncover your most recent search activities, but it requires you to have signed in to your Google account before the browsing history is erased.

To retrieve deleted Chrome History using Google My Activity on a Mac, follow these steps:

1. Open Google Chrome and log in to your Google account.
2. Navigate to Google My Activity.
3. Here, you will find a display of all your Google activities, including visited pages, YouTube history, and more. You can restore your Chrome history by filtering based on date and product.

Method 2. Recover Deleted Chrome History Using Browser Cookies

On your Mac, you have the option to recover deleted Chrome history using browser cookies as well. Follow these steps:

1. Open Google Chrome and click on the three dots located in the top right corner.
2. Select Settings -> Privacy and Security -> Cookies and other site data.
3. Next, click on "See all cookies and site data."
4. You will now be able to view a list of Chrome browsing history cookies, each associated with the domain name of the visited website.

Method 3. Recover Deleted Internet History from iCloud

If you use the same Apple account for your Mac and iPhone or iPad, and have Safari sync enabled in iCloud, you can attempt to sync your Safari history back to your Mac. Follow these steps:

1. Access Settings on your iPhone or iPad.
2. Tap on the avatar to access the Apple ID management page.
3. Choose iCloud and scroll to locate the Safari app.
4. Enable the toggle switch to synchronize the Safari iCloud data.
5. Opt for the "Keep on My iPhone" option and then select Merge.

Once done, you can review the Safari history on your iPhone or iPad to check if the deleted history has been recovered.

Method 4: How to Recover Deleted Internet History from Time Machine Backup

Time Machine is an inbuilt utility on Mac PCs that can be used to back up and recover deleted or lost files on Mac. What makes Time Machine such a convenient way to recover deleted history on Mac? It does not require any installation and can be used without configuring anything else on your Mac. To use Time Machine for getting back your deleted history on Mac, you just need to follow the steps as given ahead:

Step 1. Ensure that Time Machine is ON In case you have not switched on this feature yet, then you will need to go to the Time Machine menu, which can be found under Menu > Systems. If the switch is set to "Off", set it to "On" to enable Time Machine.

Step 2. Open Time Machine Once Time Machine is enabled and set up on your PC, go to the Enter Time Machine option situated in the Time Machine drop-down menu. Once you select that, your Mac will connect to the backup location.

Step 3. Select the backup or snapshot that you are looking for Once you have opened Time Machine, it will show you a list of all the snapshots and backups that it has taken. Within the windows that pop up, find the one that has Applications to get the snapshots taken from Safari or Google Chrome, and recover the deleted history from the "Recover" button given under it.

Method 5: How to Recover Deleted History on Chrome or Safari Easily

If you are trying to recover deleted history on Mac, then Time Machine, though a handy option, may not be that effective in most cases. To recover deleted history on Mac with the most effective results, professional Mac data recovery software is what you need - and this is where Recoverit Mac Data Recovery comes in.

I: Recoverit Makes Browser History Recovery Easier

Browser history recovery on Mac is quite easy if you have Recoverit. It utilizes the all-around scan and deep scan algorithm to dig out your deleted or lost data on your storage device, piece them together, and show you. It just takes 3 steps - select > scan > recover, and your deleted Internet search or browsing history can be retrieved within a few minutes.

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II: Steps on How to Recover Chrome or Safari History on Mac

Download and install Recoverit Data Recovery for Mac, and then follow the next steps to perform Internet history recovery on Mac. If you are working on Windows computer, please download Recoverit Data Recovery for Windows and follow the same steps.

Step 1 Select the Mac hard drive with browser data

Launch Recoverit Browser History Recovery first. To recover Chrome history or Safari history, you need to select the location where the browsing or search data were lost or deleted. Click the "Start" button to get started.

Step 2 Scan the browser hard drive

Later, an all-around scan will be initiated on your Mac hard drive with Chrome or Safari Internet history. To restore the history data, please leave it scanning and wait for a while.

Step 3 Recover deleted history on Mac

After the scanning, you can select your Internet history files and click "Recover" button to get them back. For the sake of safety, you should put them in another safe location.

With Recoverit Mac Data Recovery, you can get the deleted or lost data files back in simple steps. Download and try it for free now.

Bonus 1: How to Find and Check History on Mac

If you do not delete or clear your Chrome or Safari history and just want to access the history, you can follow the below steps to get the desired results.

I: How to Check History on Safari

1. Open the Safari and click Safari on the menu bar.
2. From the drop-down menu, click "Preferences" and go to the "Privacy" tab.
3. Here, you can view all the cookies. Click "Manage Website Data".
4. You can see all the websites and browsing history on your Safari.

II: How to View History on Chrome

1. Open Google Chrome and click "History" on the menu bar.
2. Click "Show Full History" to view a list of Chrome browser history you recently visited or closed.
3. You can also use the keyboard shortcuts - "Command + Y" to open the Chrome history.
4. Search some keywords to help you find the wanted history more quickly.

After the above steps, we believe that you probably manage to view browsing history on Mac Google Chrome or Safari. Find them deleted or lost? Go to download Recoverit Mac Data Recovery. It can recover deleted files, photos, videos, and many more types of data within a few minutes.

Note To restore Chrome or Safari easily, free download the Mac data recovery software and try it right away.

Bonus 2: Tips for Browser History Recovery on Mac

Using Time Machine or a Mac Data Recovery software like Recoverit Data Recovery for Mac surely comes across as an easy way to get back all your lost files. With these options, here are a few tips that you can follow to maximize your chances of recovering your deleted history:

Thus, with these basic things taken care of, you will recover deleted history on Mac Google Chrome or Safari with ease and with the best positive results!