Recently cleared your Safaris browser history by accident and looking for a way to get back your data? Is deleted Safari history gone forever? Luckily your deleted Safari history is not completely removed and there are ways to get back your data.
How to Recover Deleted Safari History
In this section, you’ll learn a few methods that you can use to recover your deleted Safari history.
1. Check website data in settings
One of the places you could check to find your Safari history is in your Settings app. Not many people know about this, I myself didn’t until I was told about it and I can see how this method could come in really handy for this situation.
- First things first, open up your Settings app.
- Scroll down the app list and tap on Safari when you find it.
- Next tap on Advanced at the bottom of the page.
- Tap on Website Data.
- Then tap on Show All Sites.
Here you will be able to find the history of all the different sites you have visited using Safari. The only downside is that it doesn’t show you dates or times for when these sites were visited. It also doesn’t allow you to select the site you want to look at in case you needed to check anything specific on the site. Nonetheless, it’s still a great way for you to see what sites you’ve been on in case you deleted your browsing history within the app.
2. Use iTunes Backup
If you need more than just the website that you visited and want to see more detailed information then you can use iTunes. With iTunes you can restore your iPhone to a time before you deleted your browser history if you have an old backup saved. This method also depends on how long ago your backup is from because if your backup is from a time before you even created the search history in Safari to begin with then this will not help much. Although, if your backup is from say last week and the website history you are looking for is from any time before last week then this method is perfect for you. Just keep that in mind.
- Open the iTunes app on your Mac or PC and connect your iPhone.
- Tap on your iPhone when it appears on iTunes.
- Click on Restore Backup
- Check your saved backups and select the one with the correct date.
- Click Restore and wait a few seconds for the restore to fully complete.
Your iPhone will then restart once the restore is done fully installing into your phone. Make sure that you keep your iPhone connected to iTunes while it’s restarting and wait for it to sync. Once it’s done and you can enter your passcode, you’re safe to disconnect.
3. Use iCloud Backup
If you don’t have a Mac or a PC you can still use the restore backup method explained in the section above. Since you don’t have a computer, you will be doing this backup restore through iCloud on your iPhone. This method is just as easy as the above, if not even easier since you don’t need anything but your iPhone. Keep in mind you should also have a strong WiFi connection and be near a charger when doing this method because you will need to have at least above 50 percent battery. If you don’t have the 50 percent then you can just plug it into a charger while using this method and it will work fine as long as your iPhone stays connected to the charger. In order to do a backup restore from using iCloud, you will need to reset and erase all content on your iPhone first.
- To factory reset your iPhone open up the Settings app and tap on General.
- Scroll down and tap on Transfer or Reset iPhone.
- Then tap on Erase All Content and Settings.
- If prompted enter your Apple ID and Passcode then tap to confirm you want to erase.
- Next just wait a couple of minutes for the factory reset process.
- Once your iPhone has finished resetting you’ll be brought to the welcome screen where you can begin your iPhone set up.
- Follow the setup instructions until you get to the Apps & Data screen, then tap Restore From iCloud Backup.
- Next, sign into iCloud with your Apple ID.
- After you sign in to iCloud, choose the backup that you created earlier to restore from.
Make sure that you stay connected to WiFi the entire time throughout the restoration process. It should only take a few minutes before your iPhone is fully restored.
4. Use Time Machine
Another very useful tool you can use to recover your deleted Safari history is Time Machine. Since your Safari history can be synced to all your Apple device using the same Apple ID, you can recover deleted Safari history on your Mac through Time Machine.
It’s fairly simple to use and a great way to regain access to any of your old or deleted files. Cleared Safari history is usually very hard to get back after it has already been deleted but Time Machine makes the recovery process of lost and deleted files super smooth.
- On your Mac open up the Finder app.
- Click on Go to open up a drop-down menu then click on Go to Folder.
- When the folder search bar opens up type in “~/Library/Safari/” then click Go.
- In the Safari folder click on History.db
- Next click on the Time Machine button on the top right toolbar and select Enter Time Machine.
- Use the arrows on the right side to scroll through the different dates and choose the correct date that has the history you need.
- Once you’ve chosen the correct date make sure History.db is selected then click on Restore.
After you’ve clicked on restore your system will begin recovering your history. A pop-up will appear saying, “The location to which you’re restoring History.db already contains a file with the same name. Do you want to replace it with the one you’re restoring?” Click Replace to continue with the restoration. You will then have restored all your deleted files from Safari and can then access your history.
Can you restore deleted Safari history through iCloud sync?
It may be possible to do but it’s almost impossible. If you delete your Safari history on your phone then it will also get deleted from any and all other Apple devices you have that are all connected with the same Apple ID. The only way this wouldn’t happen is if one of your other devices wasn’t connected to the internet at the time that you deleted your history. Safari uses iCloud to sync all of your devices and keeps a record of your history on all these devices. If you were to delete something from your Safari app history on your iPhone, it will also be deleted on your iPad or Mac or any other Apple device you are connected to through your Apple ID.
Summary
If you deleted your Safari history by accident and end up needing access to something in your history later on, there are a couple of ways that you could regain your history. There are different methods for differently used devices that you are trying to recover onto and different levels of difficulties for each of the different methods. Choose the method that best fits what you got going on and make sure whatever method you choose works for your device.
