1947992 - Users should have an option to Auto Delete history after a preferred period of time has passed without inactivity

Status: NEW

(Toolkit :: Data Sanitization, enhancement, P3)

Description

[Rares Doghi, Desktop QA]

Found in

• 137.0a1 (2025-02-13)

Affected versions

• 137.0a1 (2025-02-13)

Affected platforms

• all

Steps to reproduce

1. Reach about:preferences#Privacy & Security > History

Expected result

• We should have an Option (Checkbox) to "Delete the entire History and Data after 1 Week/2 Weeks or 1 Month of inactivity"
  Data should still sync normaly across multiple devices while this option is enabled.
  If there is no activity for a user account for over 7 days and this option is checked everything should be deleted.
  We can inform the users as soon as we check this option that if there is no activity detected on that user account in 7 days his entire data (Bookmarks, Passwords, History, Cache) will be deleted from Firefox for that account.

Actual result

• There is no such option for Firefox.
  Other browsers do have this option and I think its a great addition to any browser.

Regression range
Not a Regression

Comment 1

[Harshit Sohaney [:hsohaney]]

Would this be related to the new profiles feature by any chance? Is the use case that someone doesn't use their profile for a while (whatever timeline they choose) can have their data automatically cleared?
Could you expand on the sync option. Do you mean that if a user uses their Mozilla account (for sync) on their mobile, the timer on this feature should reset?

Could you also point me to how other browsers use this?

Adding to backlog, seems like a good addition.

Comment 2

[Rares Doghi, Desktop QA]

Okay so this idea came from Opera GX, they have an Option that a user can check "in case of death" if there is no activity in 2 weeks they will autodelete the entire history and fill it up with random normal websites like Wiki, Youtube or Amazon.

This would be awesome for Firefox as well.. we could make this even better, give our users more options for the time frame this happens, or what websites to populate Firefox with after that period of time has passed.

We already have a History section in About:preferences > Privacy and Security, we could add an option there.

Regarding the Sync, yes, if a User logs in Firefox on Mobile, it means he is active on that account, the history he has on mobile should always transfer to Desktop and viceversa, This would only delete in case where there is 0 activity on that account in the time frame our users want.

Here is an article that might explain this better than I can: https://www.pcworld.com/article/2013692/opera-gx-cleans-up-your-browsing-history-after-your-death.html

Comment 3

[Harshit Sohaney [:hsohaney]]

Ahh I get it, that's pretty cool. I can see a usecase here. I've added it to the backlog already, so hopefully this gets looked into.