chrome-profile-view

A Python web app for previewing data in Chrome/Chromium profile folder.

The tool is still very much in development, so if you find a bug or have a feature request, please submit them on the Issues tab in the GitHub repo.

In the current version the following data types are supported (more coming soon!):

• History (including experimental browsing chains visualization)
• Cache
• Local Storage
• Session Storage
• IndexedDB

This tool also acts as an example application for our ccl_chromium_reader library for accessing data in a Chrom(e|ium) profile folder.

Screenshots

Setting up the tool

The tool requires Python 3.10 or above. Once this is installed, download the code from this repository and put it in a folder.

The tool has a couple of dependencies which will need to be downloaded. We recommend using a Python venv (virtual environment) for this.

From within a shell for the folder containing the source code you would do the following (substitute "py" for "python" if not on Windows):

py -m venv .venv
./.venv/Scripts/activiate
pip install -r requirements.txt

Line by line this:

1. Initializes a new venv
2. Activates the venv
3. Installs the dependencies listed in the requirements.txt file

The first and final step is only required once per installation. The middle step is required each time you open a new shell to run the tool.

PowerShell Issues?

If you are using powershell and get an error message at step two, this is usually due to an execution policy violation. This can usually be fixed by executing the following ahead of the operations listed above:

Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope Process -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted

And once you're done, for safety, set the policy back to default:

Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope Process -ExecutionPolicy Default

Using the tool

Once the tool is set up launch it by providing the profile folder of interest as a command-line argument, for example, on Windows:

py chrome-profile-view "c:\Users\you\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Profile 1"

You can also provide a second argument which is the path to an external cache folder if it is not stored directly within the profile folder (such as is the case on Android).

This will launch the local web-service; open a browser and point it to http://localhost:40539. Port 40539 is the default port that will be used, but this can be changed in the source code by setting the PORT variable to a different value.

Data is loaded on demand as you move between different views so a short delay may be expected on occasion.