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Hister v0.19.0

Hister v0.19.0

Hister is a free open-source personal search engine that indexes web pages, browser history, and local files for private full-text and semantic search through a web interface, terminal, and MCP.
(4.5)

Developer

Adam Tauber

Category

Utilities

Operating System

Windows / macOS / Linux

Date Published

Sat Sep 19 2026

Review Hister v0.19.0

Hister is a free and open-source personal search engine that indexes the contents of web pages and local files so they can be searched later. It runs on infrastructure you control, provides a web interface and terminal search, and can also connect to AI assistants through MCP.

Features

Hister performs full-text indexing rather than searching only page titles and URLs. It can index pages visited through its Firefox and Chrome browser extensions and can also index local directories and imported browser history.

Its search system supports phrases, wildcards, field filters, negation, aliases, and result priorities. This provides more control than a basic keyword search when working with a large personal archive.

Hister also supports optional semantic search through a configurable embeddings endpoint. This allows searches based on meaning rather than exact words, although using a remote embeddings service means document text may be sent to that service.

The software can crawl websites recursively and import existing content. Recent releases have also added unified imports for browser history, local files, bookmarks, and archived content from services such as Linkwarden, Karakeep, and Shaarli.

Hister can be accessed through its web interface, terminal interface, TUI, command line, or an AI assistant using MCP. Multi-user support allows separate documents and search results to be maintained on a shared server.

Download Hister v0.19.0 - Software Mirrors

Hister v0.19.0 for Windows

hister_0.19.0_windows_amd64.exe | 105.73 MB

Hister v0.19.0 for macOS

hister_0.19.0_darwin_arm64 | 103.24 MB

hister_0.19.0_darwin_amd64 | 105.05 MB

Hister v0.19.0 for Linux

hister_0.19.0_linux_arm64 | 102.82 MB

hister_0.19.0_linux_amd64 | 105.61 MB

Others Download related to Hister v0.19.0

hister_0.19.0_checksums.txt | 468 B

Hister v0.19.0 Source Code

Hister v0.19.0 Source code (zip)

Hister v0.19.0 Source code (tar.gz)

Hister v0.19.0 Release Notes:

New Features

ChatGPT and Hacker News Extractors

New ChatGPT and Hacker News extractors preserve complete conversations and discussion threads. ChatGPT extraction keeps visible user and assistant turns, including headings, lists, tables, code blocks, and safe links. It supports authenticated conversations, public shares, and custom GPT conversation URLs. Hacker News extraction records submission metadata, optional post text, and the complete nested comment tree. Shared discussion utilities also improve how Reddit and Discourse comments are represented.

URL Regular Expression Search and Cleanup

Queries can now use url_re: to match normalized document URLs with Go regular expressions. Matching supports anchors, case folding, negation, and grouped alternatives. Invalid or excessively long expressions return a clear error. The delete API supports a dry_run mode that counts matches without changing the index. The Rules page and result actions can use this preview to delete documents that match a new or edited skip rule. Hister shows the match count and asks for confirmation while keeping the saved rule if deletion is canceled.

Safari History Imports

hister import browser can now import Safari history on macOS, including visit counts and start date filtering. Browser databases are detected from their schema instead of their filename, which also resolves ambiguous Safari and Ladybird database names. Permission errors explain the Full Disk Access setting required by macOS.

Terminal Focus and Native Appearance

The terminal interface now separates search input from result navigation. Keyboard, pointer, and scroll actions move focus predictably, while contextual shortcuts and feedback reflect the active area. Dialogs, tabs, rules, previews, and narrow layouts have more consistent navigation and pointer behavior. The new default terminal appearance inherits the terminal foreground, background, and ANSI palette. The Settings overlay can switch among terminal, automatic, dark, and light modes, while the theme picker remains available for choosing complete Hister themes.

Richer Suggestions and Previews

OpenSearch suggestions now include pinned and history results before index matches, together with descriptions and direct target URLs. Local and remote file suggestions open the appropriate file or readable preview. Readable previews display document type, language, label, visit count, ownership, and extractor metadata. They also provide links to the source and a standalone preview. Exact document identifiers keep previews and version history on the correct document when users index the same URL separately.

Enhancements

  • Home page: indexed pages, files, rules, and aliases use compact clickable

statistics, including a direct file search.

  • Web navigation: frequently used destinations are visible again, and the

menu provides automatic, light, and dark appearance choices.

  • User administration: hister update-user --password can assign or change

a password, including for an account originally created through OAuth. Token regeneration now requires confirmation in the profile interface.

  • Semantic search: index metadata records the embedding configuration and

warns when stored vectors need reindexing. PostgreSQL configurations are validated against the 2000 dimension limit of its HNSW vector index.

  • Indexer maintenance: compatibility backfills run in interruptible

background batches, so older indexes no longer delay server startup.

  • Operations: /health is available outside any configured base path.

Generated pages avoid stale caching while immutable assets use long lived cache headers.

  • OAuth: provider discovery, token exchange, and profile requests now have

bounded request timeouts.

  • Video extraction: the ytdlp extractor accepts an extra_domains list

for additional supported sites. Archive.org pages no longer invoke it by default.

  • Configuration documentation: settings show their server or client scope,

environment overrides appear earlier, and config path precedence is clearer. 10. Nix: the flake uses the upstream NixOS Hister module, and dependency -- hashes are maintained through nix-update. 11. Dependencies: Go modules, npm packages, container bases, Nix inputs, and -- GitHub Actions were updated.

Bug Fixes

  • Local files pass through the normal processing chain during reindexing, and

Markdown snapshots remain classified as local files.

  • File statistics include global documents in multiple user mode.

  • Preview content and archived versions resolve by exact document identifier

instead of selecting another user's copy of the same URL.

  • Partial rule updates preserve any omitted rule groups.

  • Search suggestions no longer contain duplicates.

  • Input method composition no longer starts searches before text composition

completes.

  • Leaving the search page no longer displays an expected WebSocket error.

  • PostgreSQL semantic search rejects unsupported vector dimensions before

attempting to create the vector store.

  • GET /mcp returns method not allowed instead of the web application.

10. The container health check works when Hister uses a nonroot base URL. 11. Safari browser extension origins are accepted by CSRF validation. 12. Unrelated files whose names resemble language indexes are ignored. 13. Bleve keeps its established open file allowance, avoiding index failures -- without reducing performance.

Backward Compatibility Notes

The following changes require attention when upgrading from v0.18.0:

  • Nix flake: x86_64-darwin is no longer exported because Nix 26.11 does

not support it. The Hister flake module now relies on the upstream services.hister module supplied by nixpkgs.

Performance and Compatibility

Hister is written in Go and can run locally or on infrastructure controlled by the user. It supports SQLite and PostgreSQL as database backends, with PostgreSQL support added in version 0.12.0.

The application is designed for continuous personal indexing. Once the server is running, the browser extension can automatically send visited page content to the configured Hister server for indexing.

Hister does not require a cloud service or account for a local personal setup. The project states that it has no telemetry or mandatory cloud synchronization. Indexed documents and search indexes remain on the Hister server.

The current release series also includes features for public search deployments, documentation datasets, and additional import sources. Version 0.17.0 introduced a unified import interface and support for importing content from Linkwarden, Karakeep, and Shaarli.

System Requirements

Hister provides prebuilt binaries for supported platforms, including Windows, Linux, and macOS. The Windows version can be started directly from PowerShell using the hister.exe binary.

For normal use:

For building from source:

Hardware requirements are not specified as a fixed minimum because resource usage depends on the amount of content being indexed and the selected database and search configuration.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Cons

How to Install

Download the Hister binary for your operating system from the project's releases. On Windows, rename the executable to hister.exe if necessary and start it from PowerShell with:

.\hister.exe listen

On Linux or macOS, make the binary executable and start it with:

chmod +x hister
./hister listen

Then open the local Hister web interface at http://127.0.0.1:4433 and install the Firefox or Chrome browser extension. After visiting pages with the extension enabled, their content can be indexed and searched through Hister.

Hister can also be installed using Homebrew, Docker, or Nix. Existing browser history, local directories, and files can be imported after installation.

Final Verdict

Hister is a useful personal search engine for users who want to build their own searchable archive of web pages and files. Its full-text indexing, browser integration, local deployment, advanced queries, semantic search option, and MCP support make it more than a simple browser history search tool.

The main tradeoff is that Hister is self-hosted software. Users need to keep the server running and manage the storage and indexing environment themselves. For users who want a private search index under their own control, that approach provides considerably more control over their data.

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