How to Recover Incognito History on PC, iPhone/iPad, Android Phone &Tablet
Incognito history is a monster to recover and check, but here are a few tips to make it easier.
Last Updated on November 1, 2023 by Ian McEwanThe main reason for browsing in incognito mode is to keep users' online activities a secret. When people use incognito mode, the browser will leave no trace of their online history. It is a useful feature, especially when people want to hide their weird browsing history or maintain privacy for security reasons.
At times, you may want to see the incognito history of your child, your BF/GF, or even your employees. Also, people may wish to recover their incognito history. Because they want to revisit a particular website that they had discovered while browsing in incognito. Some of you are here cause you lost that good p**n link, right? Just kidding XDDD. Some of you may keep all your tabs remain open and press the back button to restore your incognito tabs. However, as the browser deletes all your browsing activities once you close your incognito tabs, it becomes a challenge to retrieve your Incognito history.
What is Incognito mode? And how does it work?
Before recovering incognito history, you should know what Incognito means and how it works exactly.
Incognito Mode, the Private Browsing Function
Being first introduced in Safari bundled with Mac OS X Tiger in 2005, the Incognito browsing (AKA private browsing) feature has been around in many popular web browsers and enables you to browse privately without any cookies or browsing history left behind. In other words, no one can track your history or online activity with the same device when you used incognito mode before.
Once you close the incognito tabs, all the cookies, site data, browsing history, and information entered in forms will be erased from your phone/computer.
How Private Browsing Works and What does incognito mode do
First, look at this infographic about data transmission of web browsing.
Regular browsing steps are like 123456, 123456, 123456, 123456, 123456 …And the steps of browsing in Incognito mode are like 123, 123, 123, 123, 123… Step 4, 5, 6 don’t take place here. So, in this way, some important will not be seen and saved, such as Browsing history, Cookies, Site data, info that you entered in forms like ID or passwords, etc.
It means that Incognito mode stops your browser/device from saving the sent back cookie and other browsing activity. So your Incognito browsing history is invisible on your device.
However, on the network level, no matter normal browsing or private browsing, your browsing activity log is still accessible.
Browsing in Incognito Mode, Your browsing history/information/activity will be:
| Invisible to | Visible to |
| Yourself and other people who use the same device |
|
Methods to Recover and See Incognito History
With the above information, you can know where to recover your Incognito history first. Yes, recovering on the network level, where your browsing history, no matter regular or private, is visible and accessible. Also, there are some useful tips/tools that can help find out the Incognito history from your PC, iPhone/iPad, or Android Devices. Just read on and choose the best to fix your problem.
1. Recover/Monitor Incognito History on Network-Level
1.1. Recover Incognito History from Router Logs
1.2. Incognito Spyware - View Private Browsing History on PC, iPad/iPhone, or Android Devices
1.3. View Incognito History with Off The Record History Chrome extension
2. Recover Incognito History on Your Handset/Computer
3. Check Incognito History by searching clues from Downloads files and bookmarks
1. Recover/Monitor Incognito History on Network-Level
1.1. Recover Incognito History from Router Logs
Most routers, like Netgear or Cisco, will maintain a log of all the websites visited through the shared network. So, after losing those links you want to revisit, you can recover the Incognito history by accessing your router log.
Here are 2 easy-to-follow steps that should point you in the right direction.
First, open the router configuration page.
Click Start > type CMD and open the Command Prompt > type ipconfig /all >scroll down to the results of Default Gateway. Then copy the number, which in fact is your IP address, and paste it to the browser.
Second, check the browsing history from router logs.
Log into the router configuration page with your account credential. If you forget it, you can try the default username and password listed on the nameplate of the router. From the control panel, you can select the Logs sections, for some routers select Administrator> logs. Then you will see all the websites (normal and private mode) visited by whoever you are sharing the network.
1.2. Incognito Spyware - View Private Browsing History on PC, iPad/iPhone, or Android Devices
If you are looking for a way to check the Incognito history on the iOS/Android handset, then good incognito spyware like mSpy or EyeZy can help you to do this
.mSpy Phone Monitor
Track Android phone and tablet, iPhone and iPad remotely and secretly! All information is visible to you!
Monitor all social media apps, FB, IG, Twitter, Snapchat, etc
View SMS/IMs, call logs, contacts, emails, browser history
Record every keystroke and set alarm for specific keywords
- Browsed Data: No matter the date, the URL and the browser used to visit the website even in private navigation modes.
- No Restrictions: Track browsing history on Google Chrome, Firefox, UC Browser, Android browser, and Samsung Internet for Android.
- Track Everything: Aside from browser history, you can also track GPS location, Instant Messaging, Applications, emails, photos, WhatsApp messages, Facebook tracking, and more with these spying tools.
Since EyeZy and mSpy do more or less the same thing, so I’ll just show you the usage of mSpy to track the browser history here.
How to use incognito spyware to check the private browsing history
Step 1. Create an Account
GO to the mSpy website, and sign up for a new account with an email address.
Step 2. Deploy the app on the target device.
Input the info and select the phone OS.
If you are tracking on Android, then you should follow the onscreen instruction to install the mSpy app on the handset you are trying to get the Incognito history from.
If you are tracking on the iPhone /iPad, just select the "Know iCloud credentials?" tab and input the iCloud account information that is linked to the target device.
Step 3. Start recovering Incognito history.
After configuring the app, you can now login to your mSpy dashboard on a PC or any mobile device and access all the browsing history records by checking the:
Browser History
Screen recorder
Keylogger
And that’s how you can view your private browsing history.
Likewise, we can also use a computer monitoring software like FlexiSpy to check the incognito history and other user activities on the computer in real-time remotely.
To monitor private browsing history, record or view the computer screen and web camera, click the button below to learn more.
FLEXISPY for Computers
Revealing secrets from Windows and Mac computers you target
- Read keylogs
- Track social apps
- See browsing history
- Check webmails
- Find installed apps
- Check local files
- Record Webcam & Mic
- Send remote commands
1.3. View Incognito History with Off The Record History Chrome extension
The most assured way of recovering incognito history is by using the Chrome extension for recording browsing activity.
The extension keeps your incognito history and makes it easy for you to recover it when the need arises. You can access all the records of your online activity from the extension even when you close the browser. To use the extension, you will first need to download it.
Here are the steps on how to recover incognito history using the chrome Off The Record History extension.
- Visit the chrome web store.
- Once you are in the store, search for the ‘Off The Record History' extension.
- When you find it, click on it to download. Once the download process is complete, run to install it.
- After installing it, launch the browser. Type in ‘chrome://extensions' in the search bar and press the ‘Enter' key.
- This path will lead you to the chrome extension setting window.
- On the page look for the ‘Off The Record History' extension.
- Once you have located the extension, mark the checkbox next to ‘Allow in incognito.'
- A box will pop up with the warning that the extension will keep track of your browsing activity. Ignore the warning as this is its intended purpose.
- Open an incognito tab and browse the internet. You can even close the tabs after you are done browsing.
- Click on the Off The Record History extension icon. It will show you a list of your recent browsing tabs and sites you visited.
- To get the entire list of your incognito history, click on ‘full history.' It will give you all the history of your private browsing session.
The extension can help you recover your history whenever you require it. You can also delete the browsing history from the extension. The reason behind the use of incognito is to hide your history. You wouldn’t want to leave your private browsing records on the browser for long. Someone else can access it easily via the extension.
If you can’t find the ‘Off The Record History’ Chrome extension, other extensions listed below will do the same job for you.
2. Recover Incognito History on Your Handset/Computer
In this chapter, we will show you how to recover Incognito history from your computer with Windows Command Prompt as well as how to recover Incognito history with third-party software.
2.1. Recover Incognito history in Google chrome using CMD
Recovering your browsing history can also be easily done on your Windows PC by using CMD.
Here are a few steps to follow:
Press Win +R to open the Run dialog box, then type CMD and press enter to launch the Windows Command Prompt as Administrator. Input command:
ipconfig /displaydns > c:\users\*your username*\desktop\output.txt and press enter.
Then you can go to the desktop and find the output.txt, which contains all the details of browsing history.
People Also Read:
How to Check Private Browsing History On iPhone After It's Been Deleted
2.2. Software: Advanced Data Recovery from Aiseesoft
If for some reason you can’t get what you want with the aforementioned methods, you can still use the free version of Aiseesoft Data Recovery to restore this info.
Download and Install Advanced Data Recovery
Launch Data Recovery and Scan
3. Check Incognito History by searching clues from Downloads files and bookmarks
According to the explanation from Google, even if people use incognito mode to browse with Chrome, the files they downloaded and bookmarks they created will be saved.
Mac users may feel at ease knowing this because they can track where a download file came from on macOS. Simply locate the download file in the Finder, right-click it and select “Get Info” or press “Command⌘+I”. Then a pop-up window will show the website from which the downloaded file originated.
However, it doesn’t work in incognito mode.
Anyway, we still have a chance to look up the private browsing history by checking the properties of download files and bookmarks recently made. If the download file is an installation package, you can also run it and check the link within the program interface to find out the website visit in private windows.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Mac users: Will Screen time track websites you visit in private windows?
No. As long as you turn on the private mode, nothing will show up in Screen Time, although it did record all your browsing history in the beta version.
2. Does incognito hide IP?
Incognito mode only hides your online activities on local devices. Your IP, on the other hand, still remains visible. Incognito mode does not hide your IP. The best way to hide your IP address is to use a VPN service. Click the link here to get 80% off for the most reliable VPN to protect your IP address.
3. How to check the browsing history of another user
A parental control program can help you check your children’s online activities without them knowing.
Here are the top 10 incognito spyware that can help you to check someone else’s online activities remotely.
4. How to turn on incognito mode on my computer?
Simply open Google Chrome on your computer and click on the 3 dots icon located on the right top of the browser window. Then go to the third option to open New Incognito Window.
Also, you use a keyboard shortcut to enable incognito:
Windows, Linux, or Chrome OS: Press Ctrl + Shift + n.
Mac: Press ⌘ + Shift + n.
5. How to Enable Incognito Search in Android:
- Open Chrome on your Android.
- Tap on the 3 dots on the top right side of the window.
- Choose the second option to turn on New Incognito Tab.
- Open the Chrome browser on your iPhone/iPad.
- Tap on the 3 dots chrome menu beside the address bar.
- Select New Incognito Tab to turn on Incognito.
7. How to go incognito on Chromebook
Open Chrome > select More at the top right > click on New Incognito Window
8. Why is there no Incognito mode in Chrome?
The main reason why Chrome Incognito Mode disappears: A registry file corrupts and causes the incognito mode missing on your Chrome browser. To restore the incognito mode in your browser, you can:
- Reinstall Chrome.
- Fix the registries of Chrome manually
- Try another browser.