How to delete Firefox history on Mac (2026 guide)

To delete Firefox history on Mac, you can do this in the browser itself, set automatic deletion, or use a dedicated tool, CleanMyMac.

While Firefox is one of the most privacy-minded browsers out there, blocking social media trackers, third-party cookies, and fingerprinters right out of the box, it still keeps track of other website data, such as cookies and cache.

You might want to delete your Firefox browsing history for privacy, to free up disk space, or simply to keep things tidy. Privacy matters, and sometimes you just want a clean slate.f

Found an unnecessary tab in your Firefox history? Or just want a fresh start? Here's every way to clear it on Mac — quick or thorough.

Or get CleanMyMac standalone on Setapp Marketplace — no membership needed.

How to manually clear history in Firefox

If you’re wondering how to clear history in Firefox, you can do it by either deleting all history logs at once or removing websites individually.

The good news is that all the data Firefox stores on your Mac belongs to you, which means you can easily find it and delete it whenever you want.

Clear all Firefox history

The most straightforward but also not very flexible way to delete Firefox history is by using the Clear Recent History menu.

To open it:

1. Click on History in the menu bar.
2. Choose Clear Recent History. 
3. Or press Shift + Command + Delete for quick erase.

You’ll see a few options:

• Time range will let you choose how much of history you want to erase, from one hour to today, to everything.

• Data types — select what you want to erase:

• Browsing & download history means websites you’ve visited and records of files you’ve downloaded.
• Site settings remove site permissions and preferences to the default state.
• Save form info includes all the forms you’ve filled out.
• Cookies and site data contain information relating to your actions on the websites you’ve visited (e.g., which items you added to your cart).
• Temporary cached files and pages save things like images to avoid loading them from scratch every time.

Source: support.mozilla.org

Additionally, you have two data types: 

• Site settings describe various permissions and preferences you’ve used to customize the user experience (e.g., allowing microphone connection)
• Offline website data that allows a website to continue working, even offline 

Select everything you want to remove, then click OK. See Mozilla’s official guide for the full list of data types

Delete Firefox history for individual pages

What if you need to delete a webpage or two that you’ve visited recently, but keep everything else intact? This is exactly where you should rely on a History Library. 

To erase a specific website on Firefox:

1. Go to History > Show All History (or press Command + Y). 
2. In the sidebar, you can navigate between various dates, tags, bookmarks, and downloads. 
3. Select any item and click Delete on your keyboard to get rid of it. You can hold Command or Shift and select multiple items as well.
4. Pro tip: Right-click any website and choose Forget About This Site — this removes all traces from history, cookies, and cache at once, not just the history entry

If you’re an active Firefox user, I recommend checking the quick guide on updating Firefox to keep it fast and secure.

Automatically clear Firefox history and cookies

Fortunately, Firefox can erase your history automatically every time you quit, or you can use CleanMyMac, a Mac optimization app, to do it in one click.

Use Firefox’s built-in auto-erase setting

I’ll start with the Firefox native method. To auto-erase history and cookies:

1. Open and click Firefox in the menu bar > Choose Settings (or Preferences on older versions). 
2. Go to Privacy & Security in the sidebar.
3. Scroll to the History section.
4. Click the Use custom settings for history drop-down.
5. Select Clear history when Firefox closes.
6. Click Settings... next to it and select which types of data to erase automatically.

The truth is that whether you delete all history at once or go webpage by webpage, you’re still doing too much manual work on something that should be instant, so automatic cleanup is the best solution.

Clear Firefox history with CleanMyMac

Digging through settings to clear history, either manually or automatically, takes time and effort and requires step-by-step instructions. Instead, I rely on specialized tools that do all the manual work, so I don't waste my time and energy on such things.

CleanMyMac is one of my go-to optimization apps for Mac. It cleans, optimizes, and protects your Mac all at once, bringing its performance in line with brand-new models. You can update and uninstall apps, scan for malware, speed up RAM, delete junk from your hard drive, clear browser history, and much more.

Here's how to clear history quickly with CleanMyMac:

1. Install and open CleanMyMac.
2. Click My Tools modules > Find Privacy Items tool > Scan.
3. Click Firefox (in my case, it’s Safari) and select Cookies.
4. Click Remove.

Your history is clean now. And if you have multiple browsers, you can still clear history and cookies for all of them from one app, which is super convenient.

Why won't Firefox clear its history?

Sometimes you might see that it’s not possible to clear the browsing history Firefox should’ve saved. There can be a few reasons for that:

• Private Browsing mode: You might be running Firefox exclusively in Private Windows, in which case Firefox doesn’t actually save any history once you close the browser window — no extra actions required!
• History settings: Another reason for not clearing history can be in your Firefox settings. Go to Firefox > Settings > Privacy & Security > History. If it’s set to Never remember history, nothing is being saved. Set to either Remember history or Use custom settings for history.
• Custom settings: If you’ve set Firefox to clear history automatically on close, you might not see anything left to clear.

Read more:

• How to clear Safari history on Mac: Pro tips for privacy
• How to fix Chrome browser problems on a Mac: 2026 proven methods
• Clear browsing history on Mac

Recover deleted browsing history

If you’ve deleted history items from Firefox, there’s unfortunately no way back (Command + Z won't work here). 

However, if you keep frequent backups, you might be able to save the situation. Time Machine saves file versions quite often. But recovery is possible only if Time Machine backed up the profile before you deleted the history, and only if you haven't restarted Firefox since.

For step-by-step recovery, checkMozilla’s guide on profile folders.

The easiest way to keep Firefox history clean

As you can see, there are a few ways to clear history in Firefox, from manual and precise to quick and automatic.

The method to choose depends on how you want to interact with the browser, but I’d recommend sticking to the automatic methods. You can go through Firefox settings and set auto-erase, or use CleanMyMac to do quick cleanups without configuring any browser settings. Plus, the tool lets you clear history across all browsers on your Mac.

Stop clearing Firefox history by hand every time. CleanMyMac does it in one click — and cleans every other browser on your Mac too. Free for 7 days on Setapp. Try CleanMyMac Free. Prefer to buy outright? Get CleanMyMac on Setapp Marketplace — no membership needed.