How to use ipconfig /displaydns to view internet history

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Did you know Windows 10 keeps a record of the websites you view?

It doesn’t matter which browser you use, if you use “in private” or “incognito” mode, or if you clear your browser cache – it still keeps a record.

What and why does Windows keep a record of internet history?

This comes down to DNS (Domain Name System) – or more specifically the DNS cache on a Windows computer.

When you access a website, you type in the address (e.g. example.com) and Windows uses DNS to look up the network address (e.g. 93.184.216.34).

It then keeps a history of these addresses so your computer can quickly access the website again.

However, this leaves a hidden history of all the addresses your computer has accessed.

How do I view the DNS internet history?

The ipconfig /displaydns command line can be used to view the DNS (Domain Name System) cache on a Windows computer.

To use the ipconfig /displaydns command, follow these steps:

  1. Open the Command Prompt. To do this, type “command prompt” into the search box on the taskbar and open it when it appears appears.
  3. Type
  4. ipconfig /displaydns
  5. and press Enter.
  7. This will display the contents of the DNS cache on your computer – which will be VERY long.

The output of the ipconfig /displaydns command will show a list of entries in the DNS cache, with each entry containing the following information:

  • The domain name of the website that you have visited.
  • The IP address of the website.
  • The time that the DNS entry was added to the cache.
  • The time that the DNS entry will expire from the cache.

You can use the information provided in the DNS cache to see a history of the websites that you have accessed.

How do I view a specific day of DNS internet history?

If you want to see all of the websites that you visited on a specific date, you can use the find command to search for entries with a specific time stamp.

For example, to see all of the websites that you visited on 16 December 2022, you could use the following command:

ipconfig /displaydns | find "16/12/2022"

This would display a list of all of the DNS entries for 16 December 2022.

How to output ipconfig /displaydns to CSV

You can also output the results of the ipconfig /displaydns command to a CSV file.

To do this, you can use the ipconfig /displaydns command in combination with the find and > commands to search for specific entries in the DNS cache and redirect the output to a CSV file.

For example, to output the DNS cache entries for the domain name “example.com” to a CSV file named “dns_cache.csv”, you could use the following command:

ipconfig /displaydns | find "example.com" > dns_cache.csv

This command would search the DNS cache for entries containing the domain name “example.com” and redirect the output to a CSV file named “dns_cache.csv”.

You could then open this file in a spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel.

You can also use this approach to output the entire DNS cache to a CSV file.

For example:

ipconfig /displaydns > dns_cache.csv

This would output the entire contents of the DNS cache to a CSV file named “dns_cache.csv”.

How do I clear the DNS internet history?

To clear the DNS internet history, use the ipconfig /flushdns command:

  1. Open the Command Prompt. To do this, type “command prompt” into the search box on the taskbar and open it when it appears appears.
  3. Type
  4. ipconfig /flushdns
  5. and press Enter.
  7. This will clear the DNS cache on your computer, and display a “Successfully flushed the DNS Resolver Cache” message.