Like almost no other company, Google collects user data in order to be able to create services such as its web search engine, the video-sharing website YouTube, or per­son­al­ized Maps that are con­ve­nient and reliable.

How much in­for­ma­tion you disclose to Google and which data the company can use in order to optimize your user ex­pe­ri­ence is decided to a certain extent by you. You can do this by con­fig­ur­ing your Google history, for example.

We’ll show you where you can find your Google account’s history, which activity settings are available to you there and how to per­ma­nent­ly clear the entire history, a specific logging period or just those records related to specific ac­tiv­i­ties.

Google History

Google uses in­for­ma­tion from your online activity in order to improve the function of the Google product range: through per­son­al­ized search results, for example, or video rec­om­men­da­tions geared toward your interests. This can only happen, however, if you are logged into a Google account and have activated its browsing history.

In your account’s activity controls, you can define which in­for­ma­tion Google collects and saves. You can also determine the degree of per­son­al­iza­tion for each Google service that you use. Your history is stored centrally in the cloud and contains the data from all your devices.

Note

Google only lists your history in relation to Google products if you have activated this service in your Google account’s activity controls.

Activate and De­ac­ti­vate Google History

Follow these in­struc­tions to activate or de­ac­ti­vate your Google account’s web and app activity history.

Step 1: Log into your Google account.

Step 2: Bring up the Google homepage.

Step 3: Choose the “History” menu option in Google settings.

Image: Google search engine homepage.
Google search engine homepage

Step 4: Click on “Activity controls” in the column on the left-hand side of the page.

Image: Google activity history
Google – My Ac­tiv­i­ties: the Google account’s ac­tiv­i­ties overview

Step 5: Choose which parts of your activity Google should save.

Image: The Google activity controls
In your Google activity controls you decide which data may be used for per­son­al­iz­ing Google services.

Provided that you give your per­mis­sion, Google can in­cor­po­rate the following in­for­ma­tion when compiling your activity history:

  • Web and app activity
  • Location history
  • Device in­for­ma­tion
  • YouTube search history
  • YouTube viewing history

Each option can be activated or de­ac­ti­vat­ed in­de­pen­dent­ly of the others.

Clear Google History

Users who access the Google product range with an activated history sometimes like to exclude certain time periods or specific ac­tiv­i­ties from their history. For example, when these are not rep­re­sen­ta­tive of their usual surfing behavior, and for this reason should not be included when per­son­al­iz­ing the web search or other Google services.

For this purpose, Google offers you com­pre­hen­sive options for cus­tomiz­ing the search history and other activity data to suit your needs.

Clear Google History on Your PC

Follow these in­struc­tions to clear your Google account’s history via your desktop PC’s web browser:

Step 1: Make sure that you are logged into your Google account.

Step 2: Bring up the Google homepage.

Step 3: Click on the “Controls” button and choose the “History” menu option in the pop-up menu.

Step 4: Then choose the menu option “Clear history” on the right-hand side of your browser window.

Image: Google history
You can clear records in the Google history either manually and sep­a­rate­ly, or for a specific time period.

Step 5: Set a time period for which you would like to clear your history or, if needed, your entire Google search history.

Image: Google history: delete activities by date
In the example above we cleared the Google history for the last seven days.

Step 6: Click on “Delete”.

Al­ter­na­tive­ly, you can remove specific records from your Google history.

Image: Google history: manually delete records
Use the menu icon for the record in order to manually clear the selected record from your history.

Clear Google History on your Android smart­phone

Follow these steps in order to clear your Google history on your Android smart­phone.

Step 1: Open the Android app “Settings,” tap “Google” and then choose “Google Account.”

Image: Android smartphone settings
With Android, the Google controls are directly in­te­grat­ed into the Smart­phone settings.

Step 2: Choose the option “Web & App Activity” and then tap “Manage Activity.”

Image: Android: Google settings “Data & personalization”
On your smart­phone, you can set which activity Google saves at any time.

Your Android smart­phone opens the website my­ac­tiv­i­ty.google.com.

Step 3: Tap the menu symbol to the top right and choose the “Delete activity by” option.

Step 4: Set the desire time period and tap on “Clear”.

Image: myactivity.google.com (mobile view)
If you would like to clear your Google history via your Android smart­phone, Google redirects you to the website my­ac­tiv­i­ty.google.com.

Clear Google History on Your iPhone/iPad

Unlike Android, iOS does not have any functions specific to its operating system for cus­tomiz­ing your Google account. This is why you set the cor­re­spond­ing settings via your web browser as you would on your PC desktop. For this you should follow the steps as described above.

Go to Main Menu