How to Find Out a Computer's Web Browsing & Email History

Web browsing and emails can be retrieved if not permanently erased from the computer.

Occasionally you may find it necessary to locate an email address or website that you visited in the past to obtain a reference number or other information from the site. You can access the computer's Internet browsing history and email history if you or previous users on the computer have not deleted the information from the Internet browser or email. Once the history is cleared you will not be able to retrieve your web browsing history.

Instructions

Email

1. Open the email application installed on your computer (Outlook, Outlook Express, iMail, Entourage, etc).

2. Click on either your "sent" folder or your "trash" folder. Any files you have sent to another user will be found in your sent folder. Any files you have deleted after a certain period of time will be located in your trash folder.

3. Drag and drop--using your mouse--the email you have retrieved to your inbox or other subfolder. If you do not want the file deleted again, move it to another subfolder so you do not have to look for it again or you can open or print the email.

Web Browsing History

1. Click on the star icon next to "Favorites" for Internet Explorer, the "History" menu for Firefox or "History" in Safari.

2. Click on the day or time frame you would like to look for previously viewed websites if using Internet Explorer. Click on "show all history" and choose the day or time frame you would like to view under the history menu and Firefox. In Safari, a list of previously viewed websites will populate once you click "history."

3. Click on the website you would like to revisit or you can right-click using your mouse and copy and paste the website to a word processing document or other destination on your computer.

References

• Malektips: View Your Browsing History Using Internet Explorer
• Kb.mozillazine: Viewing the Browsing History--Firefox