I started playing with sqlite3 recently, its a super easy database to learn and is used both in mobile and web apps. I just found that your Google history is also saved as a sqlite3 database.

For me its under

/Users/<user name>/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default

You can get there using Terminal.  Open it up and type

cd /Users/<user name>/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default

substituting <user name> with your user name. Type in

sqlite3 History

and then once you’re in the database, hit .tables, and you can see all of the tables that are saved.

These include: downloads, presentation, urls, keyword_search_terms  segment_usage    visit_source, meta, segments, visits.  To look into any of those type ‘select * from <table>;’ so for example ‘select * from urls;’ and you’ll see the URL, the id, the time, the name, the visit count.  You’ll have to exit Chrome to be able to access the database, otherwise it will say ‘this database is locked’ or something like that.

Its way cool. I love chrome’s UI for looking at your history in the browser (History>>Show Full History).  Its pretty easy to navigate through, and you see your internet path throughout the day.  Now having the data allows you to make your own data tools to visualize and understand where you go on the web, when, and how often.  And you can easily export it.  I can see this being helpful in improving productivity.

For one, you can reflect on your day’s work and see where you were able to focus, and what distracted you.