1History

All your history in one file.

1History backs up your browser history into a single local file and lets you explore it through a modern web UI — search, visualize, and manage everything from the browser, no extra CLI commands needed after the initial setup.

Features

• Modern web UI — dashboard, keyword search, in-browser backup
• Entirely offline, no cloud, no privacy concerns
• Supports Chrome / Firefox / Safari on macOS / Linux / Windows
• Single binary built in Rust 🦀

Screenshots

Dashboard

Database

Installation

Script (Linux / macOS)

Downloads a prebuilt binary from GitHub Releases and installs it to ~/.local/bin.

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/localfirstapp/1History/main/install.sh | sh

To pass options, use sh -s -- after the pipe:

# Install a specific version
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/localfirstapp/1History/main/install.sh | sh -s -- --version v0.4.0

# Install to a custom directory
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/localfirstapp/1History/main/install.sh | sh -s -- --prefix /usr/local/bin

# Use a mirror for users in China
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/localfirstapp/1History/main/install.sh | sh -s -- --china

Cargo

cargo install onehistory

Quick Start

# First backup — auto-detects all supported browsers
onehistory backup

# Start the web UI
onehistory serve
# Open http://127.0.0.1:9960

That's it. From this point on, everything can be done in the browser:

• Dashboard (/) — KPI cards, daily page view chart, top pages and domains
• Search (/search) — keyword search across all history with instant filtering
• Database (/db) — trigger new backups, monitor progress, view import history

CLI Reference

The CLI is only needed for the initial setup and for scripting/automation use cases.

Usage: onehistory [OPTIONS] <COMMAND>

Commands:
  backup  Backup browser history to 1History
  serve   Start HTTP server to visualize history
  show    Show default history files on your computer
  export  Export history to CSV file
  help    Print this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)

Options:
  -d, --db-file <DB_FILE>  Database path [env: OH_DB_FILE=] [default: ~/onehistory.db]
  -v, --verbose            Enable verbose logging
  -h, --help               Print help
  -V, --version            Print version

backup

Usage: onehistory backup [OPTIONS]

Options:
  -f, --history-files <HISTORY_FILES>  SQLite file path of different browsers(History.db/places.sqlite...)
  -d, --disable-detect                 Disable auto detect history files
  -D, --dry-run                        Preview what would be imported without writing to the database
  -h, --help                           Print help

Auto-detection covers all major browsers. Use -f for non-standard locations:

Browser	History file
Chrome	History
Firefox	places.sqlite
Safari	History.db

# Import from custom paths; -d skips auto-detect (useful when browsers are open)
onehistory backup -d -f ~/some-dir/History -f ~/another-dir/places.sqlite

Development

Prerequisites

• Rust (stable)
• Node.js 18+

Setup

git clone https://github.com/localfirstapp/1History
cd 1History
cd frontend && npm install && cd ..

Build

The frontend must be built before cargo build — its output is embedded into the binary:

cd frontend && npm run build && cd ..
cargo build

Or simply:

make serve

Running locally with hot reload

# Terminal 1 — Rust server
cargo run -- serve

# Terminal 2 — Vite dev server (proxies API to :9960)
cd frontend && npm run dev
# Open http://localhost:5173

Testing

cargo test
cargo clippy --all-targets --all-features
cargo fmt -- --check

Changelog

See CHANGELOG

FAQ

Error code 5: The database file is locked

This happens when your browser is open during backup. Either close the browser first, or use -d -f to point at a copy of the history file outside the browser's profile directory.

LICENSE

Copyright (c) 2022 Jiacai Liu dev@liujiacai.net

1History is distributed under GPL-3.0 license.