When I type something in the Google search bar, I see previous searches that I’ve done on my computer or phone. In today’s digital world, every click, search, and location check leaves a trail.
Google, one of the biggest data collectors on the planet, stores this information to personalize your experience. But if you’d rather keep your private activity private, there are simple ways to take back control.
Google now gives users clear tools to manage and erase their personal data. Whether you’re cleaning up your digital footprint or reducing how much Google knows about your habits, here are three quick ways to delete your information: manually, by date, or automatically.
1. Delete Individual Items Manually
If you want to remove specific searches or activities, you can do it one by one.
- Go to myaccount.google.com and sign in.
- Select Data & Privacy, then find Things you’ve done and places you’ve been.
- Choose Web & App Activity and click Manage All Web & App Activity.
- Browse through your history and click the “X” next to any item you want deleted.
2. Delete Your Activity by Date
You can clear data from a specific time period instead of deleting everything.
- Go to myaccount.google.com and sign in.
- Go to Data & Privacy → Web & App Activity → Manage All Web & App Activity.
- Click the three dots next to the search bar and select Delete activity by.
- Choose Last hour, Last day, All time, or a custom date range and confirm.
3. Set Up Auto-Delete
If you’d rather not worry about manually clearing your data, set it to erase automatically.
- Go to myaccount.google.com and sign in.
- Go to Data & Privacy → Web & App Activity.
- In the Auto-delete setting choose how long Google should keep your data — 3 months, 18 months, or 36 months — then confirm your choice.
When I went to check my activity, it showed that I had paused the activity. (I must have done it when I wrote an earlier article.) I did see another setting in Data & Privacy called Search Personalization that was turned On.
After reading further, the Search Personalization setting stores what I enter into the Google search field, but it does not store the websites that I access (because I have Web & App Activity paused). I decided to keep the Search Personalization turned on because I redo my searches frequently
Google collects a lot about what you do online, but with these tools, you can decide what stays and what goes. Taking a few minutes to manage your data not only protects your privacy but also helps you maintain a cleaner, safer digital life.
