How to View Your Browsing History

Easily find websites that you previously visited

by Linda Criddle, Nancy Muir, Using the Internet Safely for Seniors for Dummies, March 28, 2011

Sometimes you need to find a site you visited but didn’t save as a favorite. To do that, you can review your browsing history.

Click the Favorites Center button and then click History to display the History pane.
Click the down arrow on the History button and select a sort method:

By Date: Sort favorites by date visited.
By Site: Sort alphabetically by site name.
By Most Visited: Sort with the sites visited most on top and those visited least at the bottom of the list.
By Order Visited Today: Sort by the order in which you visited sites today.
In the History pane, click the link to the site you want to visit. It takes you to the site, and the History pane closes.

Graphic by Paul Moser

Here's how to start sorting your browser history.

Graphic by Paul Moser

In the History pane, click the link to the site you want to visit .

You can also choose the arrow to the right of the Address bar to display sites you've visited most recently.
You can search your Favorites, as well. With the Favorites Center open, click the arrow on the History button and choose Search History to display a search box you can use to search for sites you've visited.
You can empty your History file so that no one can see the sites you've visited. (Kids do this a lot to hide searches from their parents or grandparents, but their monitoring software will flag this.) Perhaps you don't want your spouse or partner to know that you've been researching presents for an upcoming birthday, or maybe you're using a public computer and don't want to leave a trail. Whatever your motivation, to erase your history, choose Tools@@-->Internet Options. On the General tab of the Internet Options dialog box, click the Delete button under Browsing History.