Control what activity gets saved to your account

You can use your Activity controls to choose what kinds of activity are saved in your Google Account. These settings apply on all devices that are signed in to your account.

You can change these settings and view or delete your saved activity at any time.

Activity that can be saved

Your Activity controls let you decide whether or not to save these types of activity:

• Web & App Activity saves your searches and other activity on Google services to make searches faster and give you customized experiences in Search, Maps, and other Google products. You can also choose to save your:
  • Chrome history and activity from sites, apps, and devices that use Google services
  • Audio recordings from your interactions with Google Search, Assistant, and Maps
• Location History creates a personal map of where you go with your signed-in mobile devices to provide improved map searches, commute routes, and more.
• YouTube History stores:
  • Your YouTube search history to make your future searches faster and improve your recommendations.
  • Your YouTube watch history to make it easier for you to find your recently watched videos on YouTube, avoid getting recommendations for already watched videos, and improve your recommendations.

Learn more about how Google helps you control what activity is saved to your account.

Change what activity gets saved

You can change these settings to control most of the activity that's saved in your account.

1. Go to your Google Account.
2. On the left, click Data & privacy.
3. Under "History settings," click an activity or history setting you want to manage.
4. Turn the activity or history setting on or off.

Find or delete activity

1. Go to your Google Account.
2. On the left, click Data & privacy.
3. Under "History settings," click My Activity.
4. Next to an activity you want to delete, click Delete .

 

When activity is saved

Activity is saved when you're signed in to your Google Account on any device. When an Activity control is turned on, Google may store information based on this setting.

Note: If you use more than one account at the same time, activity might get saved in your default account.

Learn more about the information we collect and how we use it to make our services work better for you.

What happens when my Google activity is deleted?

When you select to delete activity manually or activity is deleted automatically based on your auto-delete setting, it starts the process of removal from the product and the systems.

First, we aim to 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. 

Along with helping you delete data manually or automatically, Google may delete some types of activity sooner when it’s no longer useful to improve your experience. 

For limited purposes, like business or legal requirements, Google may retain certain types of data for an extended period of time.