Google / How-Tos / Tech

How you can see, delete and stop saving your Google search history and other activities

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Google Delete Activity Page

Last updated on August 4th, 2019

Google knows you better than you know yourself. It keeps track of everything you have ever searched for. It is your Google Activity and this post will teach you how to permanently delete your Google history to enhance your internet privacy and prevent your search and browsing data from following you around forever.

Google uses all this data to construct a profile about you, including your age, gender, languages, and interests, and filters search results and ads for you based on your profile.

You can download all of your saved search history to see a list of the terms you’ve searched for before you delete and disable it forever.

How to download all your Google history

Steps

  1. Sign into your Google account.
  2.  From your Google Takeout “Download your data” page, select the data you’d like to download. By default, all of the boxes are selected.
  3. Click on Next.
  4. Select your archive format and delivery method, then select Create archive.
  5. You’ll receive a notification when the archiving process is complete.You’ll received an email with a link to download our archive.

Now that you’ve downloaded an archive of your data, you’re ready to delete your history.

How to delete all your Google activity

Steps

  1. Sign into your Google account.
  2. Go to your My Activity Page.
  3. At the top right of the page, choose More More and then Delete activity by.
  4. Below “Delete by date,” select the Down arrow Down Arrow and then All time.
  5. Select Delete.

Your activity might be saved in places other than My Activity. For example, if you’ve turned on Location History, that activity is saved to your Maps Timeline instead. You can delete most of your activity that’s saved in those places.

You’ve now deleted your Google search history. You can also stop saving your activity going forward.

How to delete other Google activity saved to your account

  1. Go to your My Activity Page.
  2. At the top right of the page, select More Moreand then Other Google activity.
  3. From here you can:
  • Delete certain activity: Below the activity, select Delete.
  • Get to the right place to delete activity: Below the activity, select Visit.

How to stop (or “pause”) Google from saving your activity

Google doesn’t provide a way to permanently disable it from saving your activity, but you can hit pause. Use these steps to hit pause on Google saving your activity.

  1. Go to activity controls page, you’ll see a section for “Web & App Activity.” Slide the switch to the left.
  2. It will ask you to Pause your Web & App Activity. Select PAUSE.
  3. Check to see if your activity is paused. The screen should say “Web & App Activity (paused)” and the sliding toggle should be grey.
  4. If you want to hit “pause” on Google logging your activity on ALL the Google apps and services you use, slide all the switches on this page to the left.

If you delete and disable your history, you are not invisible to Google—especially if you maintain a Google account for using various Google apps and services, such as Gmail and YouTube.

The reality is that it’s pretty much impossible to be invisible to Google. But you can be prudent.

You can use the search engines that does not track your activities such as DuckDuckGo, Ixquick, and Startpage.