When you search on Google with Web & App Activity turned on, Google saves activity like your Search history to your Google Account. We use your saved activity across Google services to give you more personalized experiences, like app and content recommendations.
In My Activity, you can:
- Delete Search history saved to your Google Account.
- Manage Search settings like what activity Google saves and when Google auto-deletes your history.
Your Search history can also be saved to your device, like when you use the Google app while signed out of your Google Account. Learn how to manage your on-device Search history.
Manage & delete Search history
Manage Search history saved to your Google Account
Delete Search history
Important: If you delete Search history that’s saved to your Google Account, you can’t get it back.
You can delete a specific activity, or delete your Search history from a specific day, a custom date range, or all time.
- On your computer, go to your Search history in My Activity.
- Choose the Search history you want to delete. You can choose:
- All your Search history: Above your history, click Delete
Delete all time.
- A specific time period: Above your history, click Delete
Delete custom range.
- A specific day: Next to the day, click Delete all activity from [day]
.
- A specific activity: Next to the activity, click Delete activity item
.
- All your Search history: Above your history, click Delete
Control your Search history
- On your computer, go to your Search history in My Activity.
- On the left or at the top, click Controls.
- On the "Web & App Activity" card, click Auto-delete (Off).
- If you find “Auto-delete (On),” Google automatically deletes your Web & App Activity, which includes your Search history, after a specific time period. To change the time period or turn it off, click Auto-delete (On).
- Follow the on-screen instructions.
To pause saving your history:
- On your computer, go to your Search history in My Activity.
- On the left or at the top, click Controls.
- On the "Web & App Activity" card, click Turn off.
- If you find “Turn on,” Web & App Activity is turned off and your Search history isn't saved to your Google Account.
- Optionally, you can keep Web & App Activity turned on and choose not to save specific activity to your Google Account. Under “Subsettings,” uncheck the box next to the activity that you don’t want to save.
- Review what happens when you turn off Web & App Activity, then click Pause.
Manage Search history saved on your device
Delete browser historyEven if your Search history isn’t saved to your Google Account, or you delete it from My Activity, your browser might still store it.
You can delete your browser history:
- In Chrome: Learn how to delete browsing history and other browsing data.
- In other browsers: Check your browser’s instructions.
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 to get these, turn off Search customization.
- On your computer, go to google.com.
- At the bottom, tap Settings
Search settings
Search customization.
- Turn off Search customization.
Tip: Search customization is only available if you accept all cookies. You can manage your cookies, including rejecting them, at any time, or sign in to your Google Account to control what’s saved to your account.
How Google deletes your history in your Google Account
When you choose to delete activity manually or activity is deleted automatically based on your auto-delete setting, we immediately start the process of removing it from the product and our systems.
First, we aim to immediately remove it from view and the data may no longer be used to personalize your Google experience.
We then begin a process designed to safely and completely delete the data from our storage systems.