Google saves all your activity and searches in the company’s services (Chrome, YouTube, Maps, Gmail…) in a platform called My Activity or My Activity. We teach you how to delete your activity history from your mobile or computer
When you use Google sites, apps, and services, some of the activities you do are saved to your Google account. You may find and delete this information under My Activity, and you can stop saving most activities at any time. These are the words that you will find in the official Google help.
YouTube, Gmail, Drive, Google Maps, Google Assistant, Google’s search engine… As we make use of its applications and services, it is inevitable to generate data such as what videos we have seen, what channels we follow, what addresses we have consulted, and what words or expressions we have searched for… All this information can be useful to have saved. But if you’re worried that Google has it too, you can clear your activity history.
How to delete your Google activity from Android
The good news is that it’s relatively easy to delete all the activity you’ve generated in Google apps and services. To make it possible, you just have to access the address https://myactivity.google.com/myactivity from any browser you use on your Android phone or tablet.
Once there, you will have to log in with your Google user. The one you use in your day-to-day for Gmail, YouTube, etc. If you use it frequently, you may already be logged in when you access the address. Be that as it may, when you are logged in you will see a list of activities ordered by date.
You have several options. If you want to delete the entire activity history:
- Click on the Delete button.
- Choose the Forever option.
- Click on Next.
- To finish, click Delete.
After clearing the Google activity history, you will see that there is no longer any information available. From now on, it will continue to be generated as you use Google services.
You can also do selective deletion by filtering what kind of activity you want to delete. For example, only Google Assistant, Android, or Android TV. Other options that you will find are image search, Google Lens, Google News, and Google Play Store… In short, all the products that Google offers are in the form of a site or application.
To delete history for just a portion of Google services, you’ll need to go to the same address, but instead of going directly to the Delete button, scroll down the page to see the available activities. To help you, you can use a search box or the Filter by date and product option. Then it will be enough to press the X button for each activity.
A third possibility is to remove a period from Google’s activity history. For it:
- Press the Delete button.
- Choose an option from the dropdown: Last hour, Last day, Since forever, or Custom period.
- Uncheck what you do not want to delete from the history, service by service.
- When you’re done deciding what to delete, tap Next.
- Finally, click on Delete.
How to delete your activity history from a PC
It is also possible to delete your Google activity from your computer. Whatever your web browser and operating system. As in Android, you only have to open the same address indicated in the previous section in your browser and log in with your Google account if it is not already logged in. To do this you will have to click on the Login button and enter your email address and your Google password.
Once you’re signed in, if you scroll down, you’ll see a list of activities related to Google services and apps appear. They are arranged from most to least recent. You can manually delete them one by one. But if there are a lot of them and you want to delete your Google activity completely, do it like this:
- Press the Delete button.
- Select the Forever option.
- Click on Next.
- Finally, click on Delete.
If instead of deleting all of Google’s activity history, you prefer to get rid of specific elements, such as your activity on Android, YouTube, or Google Lens, you can use the search box and/or the Filter by date and product option, which they will allow you to see only those activities that you want to delete. The rest will still be there.
And if what you want is to delete a period from the activity history, when you click on Delete you can choose between choosing Last hour, Last day, Since forever, or Custom period. It is a practical way of deleting your activity in a specific hour or day, leaving the rest of the information available.
Also read: How to make a full Backup of your Android
How to delete your activity from Google automatically
Deleting Google activity history is relatively simple but requires our participation. That is, you have to go to the corresponding address, choose what you are going to delete, etc. But there is a way that you don’t have to do anything. Google will do it for you if you turn on the automatic deletion of your activity.
To activate automatic deletion:
- Go to your Google account. You may need to sign in with your account if you haven’t already.
- Enter Data and privacy.
- Head over to History Settings.
- Tap or click the activity or history you want to automatically delete.
- Click or tap Choose an automatic deletion option.
- Check the first option: Automatically delete activity older than.
- Click on the dropdown that indicates 18 months. Choose between 3, 18, or 36 months. The part of the Google activity history that meets that age will be automatically deleted.
- Click on Next. And to confirm, click on Got it.
Keep in mind that you can activate automatic deletion for all Google activity histories or select only those services that you are most interested in leaving without history. They appear in the form of icons: Google, Google Play, Google Lens, Google Maps, and Google Translate… Most are easy to recognize. Others, just enter them and, if you are not interested in changing anything, go back.
From now on you will have more control over the activity that Google keeps about you and what you do with its sites, services, and applications. Whenever you want, you can delete those histories, completely or from the services that you choose. And if you prefer Google to do it automatically, you can easily activate it for all your activity or specific applications.
Conclusion
The article provides a guide on how to delete your activity history on Google from both your Android smartphone and your PC. It shows how to remove the full activity history or selectively delete activities, and how to delete a period from the past. Also, it provides advice on how to activate the automatic deletion of your activity and suggests choosing between 3, 18, or 36 months for the age of the activities that will be automatically removed.