Is it possible to view Google Chrome bookmarks and history from the terminal

The Bookmarks is a UTF-8 plain text file in JSON format:

$ file ~/.config/google-chrome-beta/Default/Bookmarks
.config/google-chrome-beta/Default/Bookmarks: UTF-8 Unicode text

• google-chrome-beta

  Depending on your version of Chrome

• Default

  Depending on your profile

To view the bookmars use this command:

less ~/.config/google-chrome-beta/Default/Bookmarks

or with jq, a lightweight and flexible command-line JSON processor:

sudo apt-get install jq

and run with this command to see the whole structure:

jq '.' ~/.config/google-chrome-beta/Default/Bookmarks

or with this command to see an entry, eg. checksum:

jq '.checksum' ~/.config/google-chrome-beta/Default/Bookmarks

or all bookmarks in the bookmark bar:

jq '.roots.bookmark_bar.children' ~/.config/google-chrome-beta/Default/Bookmarks

The History is a binary file in SQLite format 3:

$ file ~/.config/google-chrome-beta/Default/History           
.config/google-chrome-beta/Default/History: SQLite 3.x database

• google-chrome-beta

  Depending on your version of Chrome

• Default

  Depending on your profile

To query the database, Chrome must be completely closed. Or you have to create a copy of the file and use that copy.

To view the history you need to install sqlite3:

sudo apt-get install sqlite3

Start sqlite3 with:

sqlite3 ~/.config/google-chrome-beta/Default/History

and list all tables:

sqlite> .tables
downloads             meta                  urls                
downloads_url_chains  segment_usage         visit_source        
keyword_search_terms  segments              visits

or to see all downloads:

sqlite> SELECT * FROM downloads WHERE 1;

Alternatively, a GUI may be used:

• sqlitebrowser

  sudo apt-get install sqlitebrowser
  

  and start with:

  sqlitebrowser ~/.config/google-chrome-beta/Default/History
  

• sqliteman:

  sudo apt-get install sqliteman
  

  and start with:

  sqliteman ~/.config/google-chrome-beta/Default/History