The Script

Using a Bash script is the easiest way to clear your history. You can have it do nearly anything you could want. Since the point is to clear your recent items, we’ll make a script that will delete the files.

To do this, open gedit and use the following commands to create the script:

#!/bin/bash 
## Clear recently accessed files
rm -f ~/.recently-used.xbel
rm -f ~/.recently-used.xbel.*
rm -f ~/.local/share/recently-used.xbel
rm -f ~/.local/share/recently-used.xbel.*

This is very simple and removes the recently used items from most GTK-based programs. If you want to go another step and remove thumbnails as well, that’s just one line of code away. Just add:

rm -rf ~/.thumbnails/*

Once you have that done, it should look like this:

Now, just save the file as something like clearhistory.sh. The .sh extension signifies that it is a shell script. To make it executable, right-click on the file and open the “Properties” window. In the Permissions tab, check to box next to where it says “Allow executing file as program“.

Click “Close”, and you’re done.

Placing The Script

If you only want this available to you, on demand, you can either keep it as a file or put the file somewhere safe and keep it as a menu entry. If you want to keep the script itself hidden, create a hidden folder in your home folder like .MyScripts. Be sure to start the folder name with a period to make it hidden by default. Put the file in there.

TIP: You can show/hide hidden folders like these by pressing CTRL+H in Nautilus.

To create a menu entry for it, open your applications menu and find the Main Menu program.

Click on the Category or menu folder you want it to be in on the left, click New Entry and fill in the information. It can be ran either as an application or from the terminal. You can choose this from the first drop-down menu. It does the same thing either way, except you will see a terminal window flash if you select Application in Terminal. You can also give it an icon by clicking on the launcher icon in the upper-left corner of the window.

Now, type in the path to where you put the file. If it is located somewhere in your home folder, you can start the path with “~” like ~/.MyScripts/clearhistory.sh. You can also add a comment to the launcher so you can remember exactly what it does. The comment is displayed as a tooltip where it applies. When you are finished, it should look something like this:

Click OK to close and save the new menu item, and you can close the menu editor. Now, it will be available to you in the application menu. That means you can also add it to your favorites if you want it to be even easier to get to.

Automatically Clear Your History

If you would rather have your history items cleared automatically, place the script in ~/.config/autostart. Everything in this folder will run automatically every time you login. This takes the effort out of the process. However, if you only put it here, it will not be cleared in the middle of any session, so if you want to still be able to do it manually, you can have the menu entry point to the script in the autostart folder.

Another thing to note is that this will only work for the current user. If you have multiple user accounts you want to do this with, you would have to place the file and menu entry in the same way in any other accounts you want it available in. Or, you can have it done automatically at shutdown, which can easily clear the history system-wide.

System-wide On Shutdown

This part is a little more involved, but it can also simplify the process if you want to use it on multiple accounts. To start, open the Run command by pressing ALT+F2 and type:

gksudo gedit /etc/init.d/clearallhistory.sh

This will open gedit as root so you can save the file to the system directory. You can also name the file something other than clearallhistory.sh if you like, but remember to keep the .sh extension. You can copy the code from the original script and change it from there by changing ~/ to /home/*/ like this:

#!/bin/bash
## Clear recently accessed files and thumbnails
rm -f /home/*/.recently-used.xbel
rm -f /home/*/.recently-used.xbel.*
rm -f /home/*/.local/share/recently-used.xbel
rm -f /home/*/.local/share/recently-used.xbel.*
rm -rf /home/*/.thumbnails/*

The asterisk (*) is used as a wildcard, so it will follow all paths in the /home/ folder to remove the history files. Once you have the code in place, save and close.

Now, you need to open the terminal to do the rest of this part. First, you need to make the script executable. Since it’s in the system directory, you can’t do it as a standard user, so that is why the terminal is being used here. Type the command:

sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/clearallhistory.sh

This will set the script as executable and you can continue. Now you need to link it to the proper places by using these commands:

sudo ln -sf /etc/init.d/clearallhistory.sh /etc/rc0.d/S10clearallhistory.sh
sudo ln -sf /etc/init.d/clearallhistory.sh /etc/rc6.d/S10clearallhistory.sh

This puts a link to the file in the folders of things that are automatically ran on shutdown and restart. You will notice that in the rc0.d and rc6.d folders, the file name starts with “S10″. This is because the scripts in this folder are ran in order of their filenames. The lower the number, the earlier it is ran. By default, Ubuntu ships with scripts starting at S20 in these folders.

If you decide to edit this script in the future, you will only need to do so to /etc/init.d/clearallhistory.sh because the other two locations are only linked to this one.

Specific Users On Shutdown

If you don’t want the history cleared from all accounts on shutdown, you will still use the above process, but you will need to change the script a bit. Instead of using the * wildcard, you will need to create a new command for each user you want cleaned. Each command should look something like this:

rm -f /home/josh/.recently-used.xbel
rm -f /home/amanda/.recently-used.xbel

This should be repeated for every command you want ran on each account you want it ran on.

Conclusion

Whatever your reason for wanting a clean history on your computer, this will make it work for you. If you followed the entire process, you should now have the script in the autostart folder in your profile, in the application menu, and in the shutdown/restart scripts folders.

Does this work for you, or do you want another method? Maybe you already have another method. Let us know what you have to say in the comments.

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To solve this dilemma, there are Android applications available that can help easily clean out your phone with a couple of clicks. They may go by different names; system cleaners, history erasers or even cache cleaners. They usually do the same thing. Below are a couple of examples. It may not be a bad idea in most cases to power cycle your Android phone after you do any cleaning.

1. History Eraser

History Eraser is a very simple to use Android application that will help you eliminate a bunch of unwanted clutter. By eliminating information like your frequently called list, your Android Market searches, Gmail search history and lots of others, you can free up a good amount of usable space.

History Eraser is the only one on the list that gives you the option to do anything with SMS and MMS messages. If you are a high volume text and picture messenger, you could benefit from this feature.

2. Android System Cleaner

Android System Cleaner cleans out a bit more than just your history. There are 3 tabs to this application: Process Clean, Cache Clean and History Clean.

The Cache Clean and the History Clean will erase residual application information. The Process Clean is a little different though. If you have an application that is hanging up or even slowing down your phone, you can run this to help un-stick it. You will likely see some of the speed return to your device.

Android System Cleaner gives you the most flexibility in what you can clean out on your Android phone. If you are looking for a more full featured system cleaner, this would be it.

3. Smart Cleaner

Smart Cleaner adds even more options to clear information. On top of the history, cache and process files, you can also choose to clear Temporary Internet Files and even downloaded file caches. Being able to independently choose what you want to erase is helpful in a troubleshooting and space management scenarios.

There are not really any settings for Smart Cleaner. When you select what you want to clean and click the Clean button, Smart Cleaner does its thing. Simple is good.

Conclusion

These are just a few of the possible options to free up space on your Android phone. Regular maintenance of your Android phone will help keep it running in tip-top condition. If you have limited space and don’t want to root your Android, keeping an eye on your available space is a task you will have to get used to doing.

How do you keep your Android in tip-top shape?

intro image: Cleaning by Big Stock Photo.

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Regardless how big the storage space you have in your Android phone, if you do not maintain it, plenty of useless stuff (such as cache, app history, leftover files and folders after you have deleted the app etc) will pile up and affect the performance of your phone. If you have installed and uninstalled plenty of apps, it can be troublesome and difficult for you to go into your phone internal system to delete every single leftover and useless file. 1-Click Cleaner aims to make that process a breeze.

After you have installed 1-Click Cleaner, all you need to one click (or should I say, one tap) to clean up your system.

1. Install the 1-Click Cleaner app from the market.

2. Open the app. You will see a big circle at the center, yearning for you to tap it.

3. When you click the center circle, you will get a prompt asking you to confirm your action. If you select the “do not prompt after”, it won’t show you the prompt in the future.

4. Once it is done, it will show a report of the stuff that it has cleaned up.

Other than the 1-click cleaning, there is also the individual items such as cache clear, SMS clear, history clear or carry out a deep clear.

The cache clear feature will scan all your applications and clean up any cache leftover by the apps.

The SMS clear allows you to easily multiple messages and delete them immediately. It saves you the effort to go into your SMS app and delete the message individually.

The history clear comes in two parts: web-based history and call history. The web-based history deals with items such as browser history, Gmail search history, Google Maps search result and market search result. The call history allows you to delete your call logs.

For the deep clear, it scans your SD card for useless files left over by apps that you have uninstalled. Most of the time, you can select all the items and press “Clear” to delete them all.

It would be great if 1-Click Cleaner comes with a scheduler so you can schedule it to run regularly. When that happens, the name “1-click cleaner” won’t be a fitting name anymore, since you no longer need any click (or tap) to clean up the system. Hopefully that is not the reason it didn’t implement the scheduler feature.

This may not be a fanciful app, but it can be a lifesaver if you need to squeeze out extra space or performance for your phone.

What do you think?

1-Click Cleaner (Android market link)

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Simkl is an application that will keep all of your chat histories stored in the clouds. This means you can access a chat from anywhere you have internet access, not just your local machine.

Something to download

Even though everything is stored in the clouds, there is still an application you need to download and run on your local machine. Simkl isn’t magic, it needs something on your machine to record your conversations.

What Simkl works with

Right now you can use a few different instant messaging services. Skype, Windows Live Messenger (WLM), ICQ, Yahoo and AIM can all have their chat histories recorded and stored online. You will also see you do not need to use the actual application. Simkl has been tested with apps like iChat, Pidgin, Digsby and many others.

Why use Simkl?

I asked myself this question when I looked at Simkl. For a freelancer or person who travels a lot for their job, having access to your chat history can save you a lot of headaches.

Imagine you are on the first day of your business trip and you get an email from a client asking the exact price of the quote you talked about via Skype chat. Instead of telling them you will need to get back to them in 4 days when you return, you can login to Simkl and look up your chat with that client.

What you can save

If you use any of the instant message services, you can save the chat logs. These histories will be saved for later reading on history.im. Saving your chat logs in the clouds is a fantastic feature for those of you who use multiple computers during the course of their work week. Using Simkl will combine your chat logs so you don’t need to remember which computer you were on when you talked to a certain person.

If you are using Skype or Windows Live Messenger, you also have the luxury of storing your voice chats as well. For those of you who conduct interviews through WLM, there really isn’t a good way to record your chats. If you use Skype, you will need to use a 3^rd party application to review the dialog.

Having access to the voice conversation recording is ideal if you want to go back later and transcribe the conversation.

What else Simkl does

Another feature of Simkl is saving your instant message contacts. This may not seem important because you can always just re-download the IM application and sign in again if your PC crashes. Well, what if your account gets hacked and you can’t access it?

If you are looking for a specific part of a conversation but don’t remember when it was, you can search through all of your logs for a specific bit of text. I don’t know about you, but I am a big IM user and it can be a huge pain to remember who you talked to about what. Searching for a phrase can be a monstrous time saver.

What are your must have instant messaging applications or add-ons?

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There are many options to use with the bash history, some of them I use nearly every time I open a command shell. Today I’ll be covering some of the most useful aspects of the history, but I certainly won’t be able to cover them all.

Up/Down Arrows

Many of you probably know this one, but for anyone who doesn’t, it’ll make your life a lot easier. Any time you’re in the command shell, simply use the up and down arrows on your keyboard to move through the list of previously entered commands. Next time you enter a long command that turns out to have a typo, you don’t have to retype the whole thing just hit the up arrow and make whatever edits are needed.

!!

A similar feature to the one listed above is the double bang (!!). Those characters entered in the shell represent the last typed command. Let’s say you’re trying to run a command only to find out that you need root privileges to do it. Instead of retyping the whole command, you can simply enter

sudo !!

Bash will substitute the !! for the previous command, as in the example below.

This also works further backward, you can do something like

!-5

to recall the command 5 entries back in the history.

!(word)

Perhaps a few days ago you typed a long, complex command into your shell, for example a series of options for “wterm”. You can find and re-enter than command by using the history’s built in search. You simply add the first few letters of the command after the ! and bash will find it.

Be careful with this one. You may end up running something other than what you expected. Don’t use this for potentially dangerous commands like “rm” or “fdisk”.

!?(word)

This is similar to the last feature in that it searches the history for the word entered, but unlike !(word) this will find the word anywhere in the command, not just the beginning.

Be careful with this one. You may end up running something other than what you expected. Don’t use this for potentially dangerous commands like “rm” or “fdisk”.

Ctrl-R

This one may be my personal favorite history tool. It’s a bit like the !? item above, but interactive. In your command shell, hit Ctrl-R, and it will begin a search. As you type, bash will search the history and show you the results as you type. When it shows the command you want, simply hit enter and it will run that command. This can be safer than things like !? because you can see what the command will be before you run it, so you don’t have to guess or rely on memory.

Manual Search

Perhaps you don’t like the way Ctrl-R works, or you want to see ALL the commands you typed, or just the ones that contain a particular word. The history command will show you your full command history, along with the history number of each command (hold that thought, we’ll cover those numbers in a moment).

You can also specify the number of items the history command will show. To see the last 10 entries in the history, you could type

history 10

To see all history entries that contain a particular word, you can use grep to filter the results, like below.

!(number)

When you use the history command to view your command history list, you’ll notice each item in the list has a number associated with it. You can use that to recall that particular command. For example, item 87 could be run again by entering

!87

into your shell.

Word replacement

This one’s pretty great. How many times have you written out some big long command only to realize you put, say, hdd when you wanted hdc? Well bash has you covered. You can replace a word in the previous command with another using “^”, as in the example below

Managing Your History

By default, the history is saved in ~/.bash_history. You can deal with this file however you see fit, but there are some useful things you could try to manage it automatically. Namely, setting the environment variables HISTSIZE and HISTFILESIZE. To set the number of entries that can be saved in the history file to 1000, enter

export HISTFILESIZE=1000

into your shell. This will limit the file to 1000 entries. If you want to make this change permanent, put that export command into your .bashrc or .bash_profile file.

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