Internet Explorer History File Format

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Internet Explorer stores the web browsing history in a file called index.dat. The file contains multiple records.

File Locations

On Windows 9x, index.dat files can be found in %SystemRoot%\History. On Windows XP and above these files can be found in %SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\[Username]\Local Settings\History\History.IE6\.

Record Formats

URL Records

These records indicate web pages that were actually viewed. They contain the requested URL and the web server's response. They begin with the header, in hexadecimal:

55 52 4C 20

The definition for the structure in C99 format:

typedef struct _URL_RECORD {
  /* 000 */ char        Signature[4];
  /* 004 */ uint32_t    Length;
  /* 008 */ uint64_t    LastModified;
  /* 010 */ uint64_t    LastAccessed;
  /* 018 */ uint32_t    Expires;
  /* 01c */ 
  // Not finished yet
} URL_RECORD;

This corresponds to the string URL followed by a space.

External Links

• IEHist program for reading index.dat files
• What is in Index.dat files