How can I view "archived" Google Chrome history — i.e. history older than three months?
The History
and Archived History
files are in fact an SQLite databases.
You can open them using SQLite Database Browser or one of the many other programs that can open SQLite databases.
I think this is no longer possible
Edit: I think you can't view archived history anymore. See the comments to the other answers.
My old answer
Download ChromeHistoryView (freeware). Click "Options > Advanced Options". Point the tool to the location of your Archived History file.
The tool is made for Windows.
If you don't have access to a Windows PC, that's okay. I've found that it works fine in Wine, so you can also use it on Mac and Linux.
History older than 90 days is stored in the Archived History
sqlite database file. As with the Chrome install, the actual location of the actual sqlite file varies by operating system. Once it is located you may have to close Google Chrome to unlock the file then open it with your favorite sqlite data browser.
Windows XP
C:\Documents and Settings\%USERNAME%\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Archived History
Windows 7 or Vista
C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Archived History
Mac OS X
~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default/Archived History
Linux
~/.config/google-chrome/Default/Archived History
As of the writing of this comment the Archived History database has the following tables:
meta
urls
visits
visit_source
keyword_search_terms
To query the file by visit and URL
--- Code below finds visits between 01/01/2013 and 02/01/2013
--- on a windows machine which explains the timestamp conversion
SELECT
visits.visit_time
, datetime(visits.visit_time/1000000-11644473600,'unixepoch','localtime')
, urls.url, urls.title
FROM visits
LEFT JOIN urls ON visits.url = urls.id
WHERE visits.visit_time > (strftime('%s','2013-01-01') + 11644473600) * 1000000
AND visits.visit_time < (strftime('%s','2013-02-01') + 11644473600) * 1000000
LIMIT 100