Manage Google voice and audio recordings

You can let Google save a recording of your voice and other audio to give you more personalized experiences across Google services and to improve speech technologies for you and everyone.

Important: Based on other settings, voice and audio recordings may be saved in other places.

What's saved in your voice and audio recordings

Google records your voice and audio, plus a few seconds before, when you use audio activations like:

  • Saying activation commands like "Hey Google."
  • Tapping the microphone icon.

When voice and audio recordings are saved to your account

Your audio is saved to your Google Account only when:

  • You're signed in to your Google Account and, 
  • Web & App Activity is turned on and, 
  • "Include voice and audio recordings" is checked

Audio can be saved even when your device is offline.

Note: Not all apps support saving audio to your account.

How voice and audio recordings improve your experience

To help you get better results using your voice, Google uses your voice and audio recordings to:

  • Learn the sound of your voice.
  • Learn how you say words and phrases.
  • Recognize when you say activation commands, like "Hey Google."
  • Improve speech recognition across Google products that use your voice.

Turn voice and audio recordings on or off

  1. On your iPhone or iPad, open the Gmail app Gmail. Tap Menu Menu and then Settings and then your account and then Manage your Google Account. If you don't use Gmail, go to myaccount.google.com.
  2. At the top, tap Data & personalization.
  3. Under "Activity controls," tap Web & App Activity.
  4. Check or uncheck the box next to "Include voice and audio recordings" to turn the setting on or off.

When voice and audio recordings are off, voice inputs won't be saved to your Google Account, even if you're signed in.

Important: Based on other settings, voice and audio recordings may be saved in other places.

View or delete your voice and audio recordings

Your voice and audio recordings are private, and can only be viewed if you're signed in to your Google Account.

View your voice and audio recordings

  1. On your iPhone or iPad, open the Gmail app Gmail. Tap Menu Menu and then Settings and then your account and then Manage your Google Account. If you don't use Gmail, go to myaccount.google.com.
  2. At the top, tap Data & personalization.
  3. Under "Activity controls," tap Web & App Activity And then Manage Activity. On this page, you can:
    • View a list of your past activity. Items with the audio icon Speak include a recording.
    • Play the recording, click Details next to the audio icon Speak And then View recording And then Play Play.

If you see the "Transcript not available" message, your microphone was turned off or there was too much background noise during that activity.

Delete recordings from your Web & App Activity

Delete items one at at time

  1. On your iPhone or iPad, open the Gmail app Gmail. Tap Menu Menu and then Settings and then your account and then Manage your Google Account. If you don't use Gmail, go to myaccount.google.com.
  2. At the top, tap Data & personalization.
  3. Under "Activity controls," tap Web & App Activity And then Manage Activity. On this page, you'll see a list of your past activity. Items with the audio icon Speak include a recording.
  4. Next to the item you want to delete, tap More More And then Delete.

Delete all items at once

Note: These steps will delete all of your Web & App Activity items, not just items that include a recording.

  1. On your iPhone or iPad, open the Gmail app Gmail. Tap Menu Menu and then Settings and then your account and then Manage your Google Account. If you don't use Gmail, go to myaccount.google.com.
  2. At the top, tap Data & personalization.
  3. Under "Activity controls," tap Web & App Activity  And then Manage Activity. On this page, you'll see a list of your past activity. Items with the audio icon Speak include a recording.
  4. On the top right, select More More And then Delete activity by.
  5. Under "Delete by date," select Down arrow Down arrow And then All time.
  6. At the bottom, select Delete And then Delete.

Other places voice and audio recordings may be saved 

The Voice and audio recordings setting does not affect other Google services (like Voice or YouTube) that you may use to save voice and audio information.

Depending on other device settings, voice and audio recordings may still be saved on your device. Improvements to speech models may also be sent to Google without uploading your voice and audio recordings. For example, when the Improve Gboard setting is on, Gboard can improve word suggestions for everyone without sending what you say to the server. Learn how Gboard gets better.

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