How To Automatically Delete Browsing History in Firefox

Like any other browser, Firefox stores all browsing data, including cache, cookies, history, as well as keywords you search. If you use a public computer, it’s advisable to remove the data as soon as you finish browsing to keep it away from prying eyes. That said, you may also want to consider doing the same if you share your computer with a friend or family member.

Manually deleting the Firefox history is a walk in the park. But there is no need to bother because the browser allows you to automate the entire process. In a couple of minutes, you’ll be able to tweak all the necessary settings and keep your browser free from junk files permanently.

How to Make the Fox Run on Auto

Go to the top right corner of the browser window and click the hamburger icon (three horizontal lines) to open the menu.

Choose Preferences and then click the Privacy & Security option on the left. Go to “Firefox will” under History and select “Use custom settings for history”, it’s at the bottom of the drop-down menu.

Make sure to check the box in front of “Clear history when Firefox closes”. You can also choose the type of data you want to remove by clicking on Settings.

Aside from Active Logins, you may want to keep all the settings as default. Once you are done, click OK to confirm and you’ve successfully set automatic history removal.

Things to Remember

In case the browser doesn’t normally shut down, the automatic removal won’t work. To ensure the history gets removed, re-launch the browser and quit as you regularly do.

If your Firefox is on automatic private browsing, it doesn’t record any history. History form a regular window can be removed only from that window.

Useful Add-Ons

You don’t actually need any add-ons to automatically delete Firefox history. However, some of them come with extra features you might find useful. Here are our two top picks.

History AutoDelete

History AutoDelete has a few features that allow greater automation than available by default. For example, you can choose specific domains to get auto removed. There is also an option to keep the most recent history and wipe only old data.

The add-on has an icon which displays the number of times a specific domain appears in the history. Additionally, it features a counter with the total number of deleted items. The UI is easy to navigate and user friendly, but the add-on doesn’t work on Android Firefox for now.

History Cleaner (History Eraser)

Aside from a specific time period, History Cleaner also features an option to define the zone from which to remove data. The zones refer to three different sources of data and they include protected websites, normal websites, and extension zone.

Normal websites are pretty self-explanatory. Protected websites are those that you install as hosted apps and extension zone refers to the installed packaged apps and extensions. With these extra zones, History Cleaner provides more functions compared to the default Firefox.

Note: Both add-ons received last updates in 2019. However, more people use History AutoDelete and it has a somewhat better rating.

Manually Clear History

Now that you know how to automatically wipe history, why not take a look at how to do it manually.

Select the Library menu, then History, and click on Clear Recent History. A pop-up window appears with a few setting you can customize to your preference. The “Time range to clear” menu gives you the option to select last hour, two hours, four hours, a day, or everything.

Under History, you can uncheck any type of data you’d like to keep. But it’s advised to keep everything as is and maybe just uncheck the Active Logins option. Once you are done click Clear Now to confirm and you’re done.

Remove Just One Website from Firefox History

Let’s say you want to get a present for your partner and cover up the tracks so she or he doesn’t suspect anything. You can remove just that link and keep your partner oblivious to the surprise.

Go into the Library menu, select History, and click “Show All History” (it’s at the bottom). Type the name of the website you want to delete into the search bar and hit Return. Choose the exact page from the results and click on it while holding Ctrl. To remove the website click “Forget About This Site”.

A Happy Fox Is a Cache-Free Fox

If you are wondering how to clear browsing history on mobile Firefox, it’s super easy. Navigate to the History page and hit the “Clear browsing data” at the bottom and that’s it. There is no automation option, but it might become available with a future update of one of the auto-clear add-ons.