Advanced Feature

Web History

time.md can read your local browser history and turn it into a searchable timeline, domain leaderboard, and activity chart without uploading browsing data anywhere.

Local by design

Browser visits are read from files on your Mac. Optional persistence stores a local archive in time.md’s Application Support folder.

Review local data

What Web History adds

Screen time answers “which app was active?” Web History adds “which sites were visited inside browsers?” When enabled, time.md scans browser history databases on your Mac, normalizes visits into one model, and lets you explore them alongside your daily context.

No cloud sync. time.md does not collect your browser history, send it to analytics, or sync it to a server. The feature reads local files and renders them in the app.

Timeline

Search visits by title, URL, or domain and filter by browser for a chosen date range.

Top Domains

Rank sites by visit count, first and last visit, and the browsers where they appeared.

Activity

See daily and hourly visit patterns to understand when web activity spikes.

Supported browsers

time.md supports the browser families currently modeled by the Web History reader:

Browser Source used Notes
Safari Safari history database Includes local history Safari records outside private browsing.
Chrome Chromium History database Default profile is scanned when present.
Firefox Firefox places.sqlite profiles Multiple local profiles can be discovered.
Arc Chromium-compatible history database Handled with the same normalized model as Chrome-like browsers.
Brave Chromium-compatible history database Visible after Brave has written local history and permissions allow reading it.
Edge Chromium-compatible history database Reads local Edge history when installed.

The browser picker only shows installed, enabled sources that time.md can inspect. If a browser is not installed, has no history, or is blocked by macOS permissions, it may be absent or empty.

Using the Web History screen

Open Web History from the app sidebar. Choose a date range, then use the browser filter and search field to narrow results.

  1. Timeline

    Lists individual visits with title, domain, browser, URL, and visit time. Search matches titles, URLs, and domains.

  2. Top Domains

    Groups visits by domain, shows counts and time boundaries, and lets you expand into the pages behind a domain.

  3. Activity

    Aggregates visits into daily and hourly buckets so you can spot heavy browsing windows.

Search is local. Filtering happens against data already read on your Mac. It does not query a remote service.

Full Disk Access

macOS protects browser history files. To let time.md read them reliably, grant Full Disk Access:

  1. Open System Settings

    Go to Privacy & Security → Full Disk Access.

  2. Add time.md

    Turn on Full Disk Access for time.md. If the app is not listed, add it from your Applications folder.

  3. Restart the scan

    Quit and reopen time.md, then return to Web History and refresh the date range.

Full Disk Access lets time.md read protected local files. It does not grant special access to private browsing sessions that browsers never write to disk.

Optional local archive

Web History can be used as a live reader only, or you can enable local persistence so time.md keeps its own archive of normalized visits. The archive is useful when browser history rolls off, profiles move, or you want faster historical queries.

Where it lives

Current builds store archived visits in ~/Library/Application Support/time.md/web-history.db.

What it contains

Normalized visit fields such as URL, title, domain, browser, visit time, and visit count metadata.

What it is not

It is not uploaded, synced, or shared with time.md servers.

Delete the persisted archive

Use the Web Browser settings action to delete persisted web history. This clears time.md’s archive only; it does not delete history from Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Arc, Brave, or Edge.

~/Library/Application Support/time.md/web-history.db
~/Library/Application Support/time.md/web-history.db-wal
~/Library/Application Support/time.md/web-history.db-shm

If you remove the files manually, quit time.md first. Older builds may have migrated legacy archive rows out of screentime.db; current archives are stored separately so browser visits do not inflate the screen-time database.

Private browsing and history clearing

  • Private or incognito windows usually do not write normal browser history, so time.md cannot show visits that the browser never saved.
  • If you clear browser history before time.md reads it, those visits may disappear from live browser sources.
  • If local persistence was enabled before the clear, visits already archived by time.md can remain in web-history.db until you delete the archive.
  • Browser sync settings are browser-owned. time.md reads the local history files present on this Mac.

Troubleshooting

No visits appear

Confirm Full Disk Access, check that the browser has local history, and try a wider date range.

A browser is missing

Install or launch the browser once so it creates a profile. The picker only shows sources that exist locally.

Visits look incomplete

Private browsing, history clearing, profile changes, and browser-specific retention policies can all reduce what is available.

Archive feels stale

Refresh the Web History screen. If needed, delete the local archive and let time.md rebuild it from browser files that still exist.