When you search on Google with “Web & App Activity” on, Google saves activity like your search history to your Google Account. It helps Google improve your search results and suggestions.
With My Activity, you can:
- Erase the search history saved to your Google Account.
- Change your search settings. You can pick what Google saves and when Google deletes your history.
You can also delete all your activity, and not just Google Search history. Learn how to delete your activity.
Erase your search history
Important: Once you erase your search history, you can’t get it back.
You can erase one search or all your search history from a day, week, or ever.
- On your computer, go to your search history in My Activity.
- Select a search history you want to erase.
- All your Search history: Click Delete
Delete all time.
- Erase searches from a time period: Click Delete
- Erase searches from a day: Find the day, then click Delete all activity from [day]
.
- Erase one search: Find the search, then click Delete activity item
- All your Search history: Click Delete
Tip: You can manage your activity in Access and control activity in your account.
When you use the Google app while you’re signed out of your Google Account, your search history can be saved to your computer.
Stop saving your search history
- On your computer, go to your search history in My Activity.
- At the top left, click Controls.
- Under "Web & App Activity," click Turn off.
- Click Turn off or Turn off and delete activity.
- If you select “Turn off and delete activity,” follow the steps to choose what you want to erase.
Tip: Your search history isn’t saved to your Google Account when you search and browse in Incognito mode.
Erase your search history automatically
Important: If you set your search history to erase automatically, you can still erase it.
- On your computer, go to your search history in My Activity.
- At the top left, click Controls.
- Find "Web & App Activity."
- Click the words under "Auto-delete (Off)" or "Auto-delete (On)."
- Select what you want to do.
- Based on when you want to automatically erase your search history, click Auto-delete activity older than and choose:
- 3 months
- 18 months
- 36 months
- If you don't want to erase your search history automatically, click Don't auto-delete activity.
- Based on when you want to automatically erase your search history, click Auto-delete activity older than and choose:
- Click Next.
Change search history saved on your computer
Erase browser historyEven if your search history isn’t saved to your Google Account, or you delete it from My Activity, your browser might track it.
You can erase your browser history in:
- Chrome: Learn how to erase browsing history and other browsing data.
- Other browsers: Look for the instructions in your browser.
If you’re signed out from your Google Account when you search on Google, you may find recommendations related to your recent search. If you don’t want this, turn off search customization.
- On your computer, go to Google.
- At the bottom, click Settings
- Turn off Search customization.
How Google erases your history in your Google Account
When you erase activity manually or it’s erased automatically, the process starts to remove it from the product and systems.
We aim to remove it from view, and the data no longer personalizes your Google experience.
We then begin a process designed to safely and completely erase the data from our storage systems.