How can I read Chrome Cache files?

Question

A forum I frequent was down today, and upon restoration, I discovered that the last two days of forum posting had been rolled back completely.

Needless to say, I\'d

Answer 1

The Google Chrome cache directory $HOME/.cache/google-chrome/Default/Cache on Linux contains one file per cache entry named <16 char hex>_0 in "simple entry format":

• 20 Byte SimpleFileHeader
• key (i.e. the URI)
• payload (the raw file content i.e. the PDF in our case)
• SimpleFileEOF record
• HTTP headers
• SHA256 of the key (optional)
• SimpleFileEOF record

If you know the URI of the file you're looking for it should be easy to find. If not, a substring like the domain name, should help narrow it down. Search for URI in your cache like this:

fgrep -Rl '' $HOME/.cache/google-chrome/Default/Cache

Note: If you're not using the default Chrome profile, replace Default with the profile name, e.g. Profile 1.