Local Browser History MCP

An MCP server that allows searching local browser history files through a unified interface. Works with MCP-compatible clients and as a tool for the llm CLI tool.

The tool currently supports Chrome, Firefox, and Safari browser histories.

Installation

MCP Server (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, etc.)

Install with MCP support:

pip install llm-tools-browser-history

Quick start for Claude Desktop - add to ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "browser-history": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "--from",
        "llm-tools-browser-history",
        "browser-history-mcp",
      ]
    }
  }
}

Once configured, you can use the browser_history tool in conversations with Claude.

Note that the CLI supports additional options as needed:

browser-history-mcp --help

Query Parameter Whitelist

By default, query parameters are stripped from URLs to protect sensitive data (session IDs, auth tokens, etc.). A built-in whitelist preserves useful parameters like search terms and video IDs for well-known domains (Google q, YouTube v, etc.).

To supply your own whitelist, create a YAML file mapping domains to allowed parameter keys:

# my-whitelist.yaml
google.com:
  - q
  - tbm
youtube.com:
  - v
  - t
amazon.com:
  - k
  - field-keywords
github.com:
  - q

Then pass it via --qp-whitelist:

browser-history-mcp --qp-whitelist my-whitelist.yaml

Domain matching walks up subdomains: a URL on images.google.com will match the google.com rule if no images.google.com rule exists. Domains not in the whitelist have all query parameters stripped (the previous default behaviour).

The database schema includes a stripped_qp column that records the names (never values) of removed parameters, and a domain column for the URL's domain.

Debugging with --query

Use --query to run a single SQL query, print results, and exit without starting the MCP server:

browser-history-mcp --query "SELECT url, title, domain, stripped_qp FROM browser_history LIMIT 5"

Note: Safari browser history is blocked by TCC - you would need to explicitly allow access to your Safari data (I don't yet have instructions for this, but welcome contributions!)

llm CLI tool

Install for use with llm:

# install the plugin:
llm install llm-tools-browser-history

# see available plugins:
llm plugins

...
  {
    "name": "llm-tools-browser-history",
    "hooks": [
      "register_tools"
    ],
    "version": "0.1.0"
  },
...

Examples:

# Search for pages mentioning yosemite in title or URL
llm -T llm_time -T BrowserHistory "what pages about yosemite did I look up recently?"

# Limit to Firefox and Safari sources
llm -T llm_time -T 'BrowserHistory(["firefox","safari"])' "what pages about yosemite did I look up recently?"

# Extend the number of rows returned, and whitelist query parameters for example.com:
llm -T 'BrowserHistory(None,1000,{"example.com": ["q"]}' "Show the query parameters for the last 1000 visits to example.com"

Security and Privacy

Warning: This tool has read-access to your entire browser history. You risk sending this highly sensitive personal data to third-party services (like OpenAI).

See the lethal trifecta article for more information about the risks of using tools like this with LLMs.

To mitigate the risks of data leakage:

• Only runs queries against a copy of the target browser's history database (so any malicious modification has no effect).
• Limits the number of results to no more than 100 records per tool use.
• Does not return the entire browser history record. This tool will return a subset of fields (URL, title, visit date). Query parameters are filtered by a configurable whitelist (only safe keys like search terms are preserved; all others are stripped). Timestamps only include the date (not the time).

Dev setup

make setup
make test

pip install -e .

llm -T llm_time -T BrowserHistory --td "what pages about yosemite did I look up recently?"

Documentation

• MCP Setup Guide - Setting up the MCP server for Claude Desktop, Claude Code, etc.

ADRs

• 1. Python project
• 2. Expose browser history as an LLM toolbox tool
• 3. Normalized SQL interface
• 4. MCP Standalone Service