How To Delete Google Search History & Prevent Saving Your Data
Google has been featured in the news section for data security often but often not in a good way. As a result, the public is becoming cautious about how Google’s data is being used in various ways, from leaks of its products to leaks of customer information and even capturing the personal details of those who use Google applications.
The privacy database isn’t a sign that Google is trying to track you in any way, as the data is kept anonymously; however, it is linked to you. This allows advertisers to know more about your demographics and interests, and preferences to target advertisements.
If you’ve been looking into something that you shouldn’t have, are working on things, or do not want websites to collect your data, there are options to erase the Google history stored on your devices.
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How to remove google search history account settings
Once you’ve understood the vast amount of data being collected and analyzed, it’s time to take action about it. Unfortunately, Google’s default settings favor data collection rather than personal privacy. However, Google has made it much easier to review your settings by presenting your Data & Personalization page with the Privacy Checkup, which guides you through a series of questions about your settings.
This includes “activity” settings, profile information, and personalized ads; If you’ve got an account on a Google account, grab an iced tea (or something more potent) and spend an hour looking through every single setting.
Automatic deletion
Google is testing the possibility of automatic deletion of some user interactions with the company – instead of storing records for many years. At the beginning of May 2019, the company unveiled an auto-delete suite of controls. Beginning with location history and later activities on the web and apps, Google plans to eliminate any history that people have.
Users can select a limitation – either 3 or 18 months for the length of time Google will retain this data. Anything that’s older than 18 months old will be erased. It’s a step in the right direction; however, Google hasn’t explained why it selected the two, essentially random, time limits. However, it plans to add the feature to other aspects of its collection process.
Web & App activity
Web and App activity tracks the activities of your browser and searches within Google applications like Chrome and other apps which use Google Services, for example, mapping. This is used to power your previous searches and generate suggestions. If you switch off this feature, you won’t be able to see your most recent searches or customized results. However, turning off this feature doesn’t stop Google from knowing what websites you go to.
Voice
If you call your mobile or Google Home device, such as when you click the microphone icon within Chrome or by saying “Okay, Google,” a recording is made. Google claims that it uses the information to improve its speech recognition technology, for example, to understand your voice. Every clip comes with specifics of when the recording was created and which application was used, like Google Chrome and Google’s Android Google App — you can even playback the audio clips. They can be removed in a group or individually. They can be deactivated within your account under My Activity.
Google is also aware that some people might want to erase their voice history through their voice. So Google has also introduced instructions “hey Google, delete the I said to you” These voice commands don’t have to be enabled in the settings menu and will be activated the first time you speak the words. If you request over a whole week’s worth of voice history to be erased, you’ll be asked to complete the deletion online, with the right website appearing on your phone.
Location
The history of your location tracks the exact location you’re in, even if you’re not making use of Google Maps. Google determines which device you’re using and where you are and holds on to that information. Go to your timeline to view the complete extent of the data. If you’re running Android, Google likely knows where you were at any time throughout the years.
The personalized services it offers aren’t very impressive. Turn off the history of your location, and you’ll be able to still utilize Maps; however, you won’t receive suggestions based on the places you’ve been to, as well as “useful” ads. Switch it off using Activity settings, then delete any existing data from the timeline. Even if you switch off the location history tracking feature, Google still knows where you are and that other apps could steal that data; to completely stop this, it is necessary to shut off Web & App Activity.
Other settings
In addition to the above, you can disable YouTube Watch History and Search History, which Google makes recommendations from, and management of Google Photos, including turning off facial recognition and eliminating location information from the metadata associated with shared photos.
How to erase google search history from your Google account
Remove your search history by taking these steps.
- Go to myaccount.google.com in a mobile or web browser, and then sign into Google. Sign in to your Google Account in case you’re not signed in.
- Choose the data & and personalization data. Scroll down to the timeline and activity. Choose My Activity (enter your password or two-factor authentication if you’ve got the additional verification option activated).
- To erase all of the Google records of searches, click to clear all your Google search history, click on the 3 vertical dots high up to the right side of the box, and then click the option to delete your search history.
- Click All Time in the delete activity box.
- Select which services you want to remove activities from. Choose the service to remove activity from or select All to choose all categories. Select Next.
- The confirmation screen will appear; choose Delete to erase your Google account for good.
Deleting your search history from your Android/ iPhone
Utilizing your phone and a few clicks to erase your most recent searches or the entire history of your searches. If you’ve searched for something within the past 15 minutes, there’s an easy method to remove your searches from the timeframe. In other cases, follow the steps below for a more precise method to delete your most recent search history.
From the Google Search app
- Open the Google Search app.
- Make sure to tap your profile photo in the upper right corner.
- Select Search History.
- Before you are able to continue, you must verify your identity. To verify your identity, click on the blue Verify icon at the lower right of the page.
- Continue to tap Keep going and then enter your screen pattern of lock (password, PIN) or fingerprint.
- The complete search history is displayed at the end of the page with an X on every item and day.
- Tap the X next to each query delete it.
How to delete previous google searches from your browser history
Google keeping records of your prior searches on your account is just one aspect of what you need to do in the event that you wish to eliminate all of your searches. You probably already know that the browser stores a log of each page you visit within its history. It is, therefore, necessary to erase any previous Google search results from your browsing history in the next step.
We’ll show you how to do this with Chrome. Start by clicking the three dots menu on the right-hand side and then click the History tab to launch the interface. A keyboard shortcut Ctrl+H (Windows) and Cmd + Cmd + (Mac) can also jump to this.
In this section, select the boxes next to each history entry you wish to erase. Once you’ve chosen each one, click the delete button on the right at the very top to remove them from your history. If the searches you’d like to erase are scattered, you can use the search bar on the top to show only google.com entries.
As opposed to manually eliminating things Instead of manually deleting them, instead, the clear browsing history tool that is located on the left-hand side of the History page allows you to erase your browsing history faster. It is possible to open it anywhere within Chrome by pressing shortcuts like a key combination of Ctrl, Shift, and Del shortcut.
You can choose to use either the Advanced or advanced tabs to erase browsing history and other types of history, such as cached data and cookies. Chrome allows you to select the date you want to delete history from, then select clear data at the time you’re ready.
Prevent google from saving search history in the future
You can erase your previous search history on Google at any time you like, but it is difficult to delete them manually every day. In the alternative, it is possible to stop Google from saving any part of your previous searches going forward.
To accomplish this, return to your main page for the Web and App Activity page, and then select the button to disable it. This will stop Google from using your activities using search results as well as the other Google services to customize your experience. Also, it prevents recent search results from being shown on Google’s homepage. Also, Google is unable to record your searches in the future.
If you frequently need to clear all of the prior searches you’ve made on Google, use this feature to speed up your search. While you’re here, be aware that this is only one of the numerous ways in which Google keeps data concerning the user. It is possible to look into other controls for activities and turn them off for greater privacy.
Tap the icon next to each day or query to remove it.
To remove items in your history of searches, select the blue delete icon and choose from the options available Choose from Delete today or a custom-set range of searches and Delete all time and the auto-deletion option. Three options let you remove all searches from the present day, the specific timeframe, and all or all of them. Auto-delete lets you instantly delete search results older than 318 or 36 months. This lets you delete search results that are no longer relevant.
Whatever option you pick, the search history will be completely erased. But the history of your browsing isn’t completely cleared. So we’re talking about only your Google history of searches.
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