# History Book - Browse & Search — Search your browsing history

> Browse and search saved browsing history, prioritizing articles for privacy. (iPhone/iPad app by And a Dinosaur.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/history-book-browse-and-search/id1619241039 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [And a Dinosaur](https://appshunter.io/developer/475577301)
- Category: Productivity, Utilities
- Price: $6.99
- Rating: 4.40/5 from 15 App Store ratings · 19 written reviews indexed
- Age rating: 4+
- Requires: iOS 15.0 · 3 MB
- Languages: American English
- Released: 2022-05-23
- Data updated: 2026-08-22
- Monetization: paid
- User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/history-book-browse-and-search/id1619241039/reviews.md

## What is History Book?

History Book automatically saves your browsing history for searching later.

By default, it only auto-saves pages that contain an article, so you don’t have to worry about it saving your sensitive data.

If you want, you can configure it to auto-save every webpage. If you are feeling paranoid, you can disable auto-save entirely. You can also exclude websites that you never want to auto-save.

You can use it as a read-it-later app, but I mostly use it as a search app.

For privacy reasons, History Book stores your browsing history in iCloud. Apart from the iCloud sync, History Book does not collect, store, or transmit any personal information.

History Book has no in-app purchases, no ads, and no tracking. It’s a universal purchase, so you only have to buy it once to use it on iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

Caveat:
- The app uses readability.js to check whether a webpage is readable. It is likely to produce both false positives and false negatives.
- The app is written in SwiftUI, which means there are some not-quite-standard behaviors and UI bugs that I can’t fix.
- The app uses iCloud for syncing.

Note: The “can read and alter webpages” text in the permission section is just unfortunate wording. History Book needs access to the web page to save the content. It’s not doing anything creepy!

## Key features

- Automatic article saving
- Configurable auto-save settings
- Website exclusion list
- Read-it-later functionality
- iCloud sync for privacy
- Universal purchase

## Recent user reviews (10 of 19)

All indexed reviews: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/history-book-browse-and-search/id1619241039/reviews.md

### 3/5 — iOS only searches titles, not content

*2026-04-05*

Ive come back to this app after procrastiplanning in all the other capture apps. Full text search works on MacOS. iOS search is limited to title only limiting the apps use while mobile. Also it would be nice to add a short note to saved pages. Sometimes the folders duplicate while syncing iCloud. Love all your other apps frfr.

### 3/5 — Great, if you have Internet access.

*2026-01-28*

While this is one of my favorite lesser-known apps, one of very few apps that actually deserves to be on the App Store, I do find it quite disappointing that I MUST be connected to the internet if I want to view webpages as they were saved. I get it, when there are lots of saved sites, even on the iPhone 17PM performance is horrendous. That being said, it's up to the user to manage their saved items, so I appreciate that it can be unlimited and would be upset if it wasn't. That being said, it's not TRULY unlimited, because in order to view a webpage, you must select the rich text icon in the center, and it will download styles from the CURRENT website, meaning if any css assets do not exist anymore, you can't view the page as it was in your "history book". Basically, History Book is just a really awful automatic screenshot app, without the screenshot part, that still requires internet access. I appreciate that I can view a version of the sites without styling, but it's ridiculous that only the core page is downloaded without any internal or external css. This is a massive limitation of the app and because of it, I don't ever recommend this app to anyone. You're better off screenshotting websites in full screen and saving them to a common location.

### 3/5 — Good App, potential to be better

*2025-09-06*

Good App, potential to be better.  Wanted to ask the developer to add some features like tagging, and being able to search in each folder.  The developer is non-responsive, emails get ignored. No updates to app, and basically - basic!

### 5/5 — Very good thank you

*2025-01-11*

Great app just works, iCloud sync, please add other sync options, iCloud fills quickly when using all sites.

### 5/5 — the best extension I never knew I needed

*2024-06-16*

I used to rely on “Pocket” to save interesting articles I found online, hoping to refer back to them in the future. However, since I tend to forget things easily and Pocket’ kind of got worse in recent years, it wasn’t an ideal solution.

Now, I use History Book, which is absolutely perfect for me. It’s simple, minimalistic, and automatically saves every article I read without requiring any extra effort. For me, it’s well worth the money.

### 4/5 — Amazing history and read me later app!

*2024-03-20*

Apart from a few missing customizability options:
- Folder in folders
- Different colored folders/icons

This app is actually really nice! I would love if you added an option to export a saved rich text straight from the share sheet to pdf though.

### 5/5 — Handy!

*2024-03-04*

Useful app for searching back through what I’ve read. I just wish there was an easy option to export the text from the app as a PDF.

### 5/5 — Invaluable

*2024-01-21*

This is an amazing app for research across multiple apple devices

### 5/5 — Must have for students and researchers!

*2023-10-28*

Family purchase friendly. If you web search on iOS safari and need to find an article you read in the past this is a very good utility. Useful when doing research papers or twitter battles. You have to turn it on in settings/safari/extension and it can only see stuff starting from when you turn it on.

### 5/5 — This is a totally extraordinary app

*2023-07-05*

This wonderful app just stays quietly in the background, saving text copies of the web pages you browse along with inline links to the images/graphics. You can set a time after which a page will be saved (e.g. if you spend more than 10 secs on a page). It's totally reliable, syncs between Mac and iOS devices, and is extremely space-efficient – I have something like 9000 entries in my History Book database, and they only take up a few megabytes. It's been invaluable for digging up references I'd failed to save elsewhere, and it's the first thing I would install on a new Apple device.

## Frequently asked questions about History Book

### What is History Book?

History Book automatically saves your browsing history, primarily focusing on articles, for later searching. It can also function as a read-it-later app and prioritizes user privacy by storing data in iCloud.

### How does History Book handle privacy?

History Book stores your browsing history exclusively in iCloud and does not collect, store, or transmit any personal information. It is free of ads, in-app purchases, and tracking.

### Can I customize what History Book saves?

Yes, you can configure History Book to auto-save every webpage or disable auto-save entirely. You can also create a list of websites that you never want to be auto-saved.

### What devices is History Book available on?

History Book is a universal purchase and can be used on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. It is also supported on iPod.

### How much does History Book cost?

History Book is a paid application priced at $6.99. This is a one-time purchase for use across all supported devices.

### Does History Book have ads?

No, History Book is completely ad-free. The developer explicitly states that there are no advertisements within the application.

### How often is History Book updated?

The latest version of History Book is 1.1.3, last updated on October 8, 2024. Updates are released periodically to improve functionality and address any issues.

### What is the age rating for History Book?

History Book has an age rating of 4+. This indicates it is suitable for users of all ages, with no mature content concerns.

## Version history (last 5 releases)

### 1.1.4 — 2026-08-04

- Bug fixes and improvements.

### 1.1.3 — 2024-10-08

- Implemented debouncing for search to improve performance and reduce redundant calls.

### 1.1.2 — 2024-10-06

- Updated setup instructions.

### 1.1.1 — 2024-09-22

- Refreshed app icons to ensure correct display in the App Store.

### 1.1.0 — 2024-09-21

- Added support for dark and tinted icons.
- Reorganized in-app settings.

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All apps by And a Dinosaur: https://appshunter.io/developer/475577301

## Related topics

[browsing history](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/browsing-history)

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*Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-22.*