Use History Monk Instead of Your Browser's Default History Page

TL;DR

• History Monk - Chrome Web Store
• History Monk - Firefox Add-ons

I open my browser history several times a day, almost always to find a page I read last week and didn't bookmark.

The default history page in Chrome makes that harder than it should be. One typo and you get nothing back. You can't say "only GitHub" or "only yesterday evening". Clearing one site out of your history takes more clicks than it should.

So I built History Monk, a browser extension that replaces the default history page with a history manager you can actually search. This post covers what the built-in page can't do, how History Monk handles each of those cases, and the keyboard shortcuts and search filters I use every day.

Disclosure up front: I'm the developer, and History Monk is a paid extension with a free trial. The price is near the end of this post.

What the default history page can't do

Here's how Chrome's own history page compares on the searches I do most.

How to use History Monk instead of the default history

Install it from the Chrome Web Store or Firefox Add-ons. The Chrome Web Store version also installs in Edge.

In Chrome, Edge and Opera it takes over the history page, so the History menu and its usual shortcut open History Monk instead. Remove the extension and the browser's own page comes back. Firefox doesn't let extensions replace that page, so there you open History Monk from its toolbar button or with Alt+Shift+H.

There's nothing to set up. Your existing browsing history is already there when it opens.

Search history that forgives typos

Type part of a title or an address and the results update with every key. When few pages match, History Monk also searches close spellings, built from the words already in your own history. That's why kyoot still lists my Kyoto pages, with a note saying it's also showing results for kyoto.

Capitals and accents are ignored too, so cafe also finds Café.

Search filters that combine

The search box takes filters, so it works as an advanced history search without a separate form. Mix as many as you like in one query:

"release notes"             the words together, in this order
site:github.com             only this site, subdomains included
-site:youtube.com           every site except this one
title:invoice               the word must be in the page title
url:/pull/                  the text must be in the address
after:yesterday after:6pm   from 6 PM yesterday until now
before:2026-10-01           up to the end of that day
visits:>10                  pages you opened more than 10 times
sort:visit                  most visited first
/issues\/\d+/               a regular expression

site:github.com title:pull after:yesterday means GitHub pages with "pull" in the title, from yesterday on. You don't need to memorize any of this. Typing after site:, after: or before: suggests values from your own history, and the Filters panel lists every operator with an example you can click.

More examples are in the guide to combining history search filters and the one on searching history with regex.

See every page you visited on one website

This is one of the things I search for most: "which page on that site was it?" Type site: and the domain. site:developer.mozilla.org lists every MDN page in my history, 208 of them, newest first. Add sort:visit to put the ones you return to at the top, or open the Sites view and click a domain to get the same list.

There's a step-by-step guide to searching history for one website.

History keyboard shortcuts

I use History Monk almost without the mouse, so the keyboard got as much attention as the search:

You can change Alt+Shift+H to anything you like at chrome://extensions/shortcuts. The full list is in the guide to searching history with keyboard shortcuts.

Delete history by site, by search or by time

Browsers can't undo a history delete, for any extension. So every delete in History Monk shows you what's about to go and waits for a second click. Within that, there are several quick ways in:

• From the page you're on. Right-click any page, open the History Monk menu and pick "Delete all history of this site". You see how many pages that is before you confirm.
• A whole site, or several. Tick sites in the Sites view and delete them together. Every page from those domains goes, including pages older than the range you have loaded.
• Everything a search finds. Search site:youtube.com, press Tab to move into the list (twice if a suggestion is open), press Ctrl+A, then Delete.
• A web search and where it led. By group pairs each web search with the pages you opened from it. Deleting the group removes the search and the pages you only reached from it. Pages you also visited some other way stay.
• By time or by kind of clutter. Cleanup covers the last hour, 24 hours or 7 days, and checks your history for 24 kinds of clutter: duplicate pages, search result pages, sign-in redirects, shortened links, pages carrying tracking parameters and more. Each group shows its pages before anything is deleted.

Two settings make this safer. Protected sites can never be deleted by History Monk, from any view. Hidden sites stay out of search, Sites, Analytics and Cleanup without touching your actual history. More in the guide to deleting all history from one site.

Recently closed tabs and tabs from your other devices

Recently closed has its own place in the sidebar, right under History. It's a searchable list of your last 25 closed tabs, and one click reopens a tab. Devices shows the tabs open on your phone and your other computers, grouped by device and searchable. That one needs Chrome sync, and Firefox doesn't offer it to extensions.

See where your time goes

The Timeline shows one day at a time, split into browsing sessions, with the gap between them so you can see when you stepped away. Analytics has a weekday by hour heatmap, your top sites with sparklines, which sites are rising or fading, the terms you search for most and a focus score. Every chart, cell and row is clickable and opens the matching pages in History.

You can export your whole history, or any search result, as CSV, JSON or an HTML page you can search offline.

Privacy

History Monk reads your browsing history through the browser's history API and searches it on your computer. There's no account, no sign-in and no analytics. The only network requests it makes are to check a license key and to look up the current price. The privacy page has the details.