You can choose whether you want Google to save voice and audio activity to your Google Account on Google servers when you interact with Google Search, Assistant, and Maps. Your voice and audio can help Google develop and improve its audio recognition technologies and the Google services that use them.
This voice and audio activity setting is off unless you choose to turn it on.
Important: Based on other settings, audio recordings may be saved in other places.
Turn voice and audio activity on or off
- Go to your Google Account.
- At the top left, click Data & privacy.
- Under "History settings," click Web & App Activity.
- Next to "Include voice and audio activity," check or uncheck the box.
When this voice and audio activity setting is off, audio recordings from voice interactions with Google Search, Assistant, and Maps won't be saved to your Google Account on Google servers, even if you're signed in. If you turn this voice and audio activity setting off, previously saved audio is not deleted. You can delete your audio recordings at any time.
Find or delete your audio recordings
Find your audio recordingsImportant: Based on other settings, audio recordings may be saved in other places.
- Go to your Google Account.
- At the top left, click Data & privacy.
- Under "History settings," click Web & App Activity
Manage activity. On this page, you can:
- View a list of your past activity: Items with the audio icon
include a recording.
- Play a recording: Next to Audio
.
- View a list of your past activity: Items with the audio icon
Manage activity. On this page, you can:
include a recording.
.Multiple audio recordings: You may see multiple audio recordings associated with an activity if more than one of your Google Assistant-enabled devices processed your audio. We use this audio to improve our technologies that determine which device should respond to you.
If you get the "Transcript not available" message, there may have been too much background noise during that activity.
You can download your audio saved in your Google Account with Google Takeout. Learn how to download your audio and other Google data.
Tip: To add more security, you can require an extra verification step to view your full history on My Activity.
Important: Based on other settings, audio recordings may be saved in other places.
Delete one item at a time
- Go to your Google Account.
- At the top left, click Data & privacy.
- Under "History settings," click Web & App Activity
Manage activity. On this page, you find a list of your past activity. Items with the audio icon
- Next to the item you want to delete, select More
Manage activity. On this page, you find a list of your past activity. Items with the audio icon 
Delete all items at once
Important: These steps will delete all of your Web & App Activity, not just items that include a recording.
- Go to your Google Account.
- At the top left, click Data & privacy.
- Under "History settings," click Web & App Activity
- Above your activity, click Delete
- Follow the on-screen instructions.
Delete your audio recordings automatically
Important: These steps turn on the auto-delete option for all of your Web & App Activity items, not just items that include an audio recording.
- On your computer, go to your Google Account.
- At the top left, click Data & privacy.
- Under "History settings," click Web & App Activity
Manage activity.
- Above your activity, in the search bar, select More
- Click the button for how long you want to keep your activity
Manage activity.Google may delete your audio recordings from Google servers sooner than the timeframe you choose, once it's no longer needed for developing and improving Google’s audio recognition technologies and the services that use them. For example, less audio may be needed for some languages over time.
About this voice & audio activity setting
When you speak to Google services, Google uses its audio recognition technologies to process your audio and respond to you. For example, if you touch the mic icon to search by voice, Google’s audio recognition technologies translate what you say into words and phrases that Search looks up in an index to give you the most relevant results.
Web & App Activity saves things you do on Google sites, apps, and services in your Google Account on Google servers. It can include associated info like location. Certain interactions may not be saved.
With this optional voice and audio activity setting, you can also save audio recordings with Web & App Activity when you interact with Google Search, Assistant, and Maps. This voice and audio activity setting is off unless you choose to turn it on.
This setting affects anywhere you’re signed in to Search, Assistant, and Maps, for example, the Assistant on both the Google Assistant app and a Google Home smart speaker.
How audio recordings are used
Google uses audio saved when this setting is on to develop and improve its audio recognition technologies and the Google services that use them, like Google Assistant.
Audio review processFor some audio technology improvements, samples of audio saved on Google servers when this setting is on are analyzed by trained reviewers, who listen to, transcribe, and annotate it, so Google services can better interpret the audio, for example, what someone is saying in a noisy environment or in a particular language. We take steps to protect your privacy as part of this process, like disassociating your audio from your account when reviewers analyze it.
This process helps services better understand what people say to them. For example, Google improved automatic speech recognition for data-scarce languages by training a single model on transcribed audio from data-rich languages, which allowed for real-time multilingual speech recognition.
Important: This info applies if you turn on voice and audio activity after June 6, 2022.
Some of Google’s audio technologies, like Voice Match, can match similar voices, tell voices apart, or be enhanced by a unique voice. If you use Google Assistant with Voice Match and you’ve turned on this voice and audio activity setting, Google may also temporarily process a model of your voice from your saved audio to develop and improve Google’s voice technologies and the Google services that use them. Learn how your voice works with other settings.
We take steps to protect your privacy as part of this process. For example, if a model of your voice is computed from saved audio, it is disassociated from your account, temporarily processed to improve our audio recognition technologies, and then deleted. Each instance of this voice processing may take up to 7 days. Voice models may be considered biometric data in some jurisdictions.
When this voice and audio activity setting is on for your Web & App Activity, Google will save audio recordings when you interact with Google Search, Assistant, and Maps, in your Google Account.
Audio is saved when your device detects an activation. Devices may support different types of activations, like “Hey Google,” a quick phrase you turn on, continued conversations, or mic presses. Some devices include a few seconds before the activation to catch the complete request.
Audio may be saved if your device incorrectly detects an activation, like a noise that sounds like “Hey Google.” We’re constantly working to make our systems better at reducing unintended activations.
If you use your device without an internet connection, audio may be saved in your Google Account once you return online.
If you turn off this voice and audio activity setting, Google will no longer save audio recordings in your Google Account on Google servers with your Web & App Activity when you interact with Google Search, Assistant, and Maps. Google will continue to process your audio to respond to you when you speak to Google services.
Turning off the voice and audio activity setting does not turn off separate Assistant audio settings.
When the voice and audio activity setting is off, Google won't use audio previously saved when this setting was on to improve its voice technologies like Voice Match. Previously saved audio may continue to be used to improve other audio technologies unless you delete it.
You can delete previously saved audio in your Web & App Activity at activity.google.com.
Other places audio recordings may be saved
This voice and audio activity setting does not affect:
- Audio saved and managed by other Google services, like Google Voice and YouTube.
- Audio saved on your device for purposes like setting up and refining your personal Voice Match or otherwise personalizing audio technologies on your device.
Other machine learning processes, not controlled by this setting, may be used to improve audio recognition technologies with federated learning or ephemeral learning.
Learn more about how Google improves speech models.