How to Clear Google Search History to Protect Privacy

Having Google save everything you do on your computer and phone is sometimes handy. It can allow you to more quickly navigate to favorite websites, help you find something you may have forgotten and even check up on your partner if you know their password. That, my friends, is what I want to discuss today, though. There may be times when you do not want your Google search information to be saved.

Luckily, it isn’t too difficult to erase your Google search history on your mobile device or computer. Let’s dive into both!

How to Clear Google Search History on Mobile

Open up Chrome on your device and make sure you are signed into your Google account before proceeding!

Close all but one tab. This is important to make sure absolutely everything is cleared.

Next, tap at the upper-right corner of the screen.

Scroll down slightly and tap ”History”.

Select ”Clear Browsing Data…”. On this next screen, you need to decide how much of your history you want to disappear. You can choose to only get rid of everything in the past hour, the last 24 hours, 7 days, 4 weeks or forever by tapping the down-pointing arrow next under ”Time Range”.

There are now a few more selections you have to make. Obviously, you’re going to check the box next to ”Browsing History” and ”Cookies and Site Data”.

Further down, you’ll see the option to remove ”Cached Images and Files”. If you are deleting history for privacy reasons, you’ll want to check that box, as well. If you have any saved passwords or autofill form data you wish to remove, check those boxes, and always choose the last option, as well: ”Site Settings”.

Last, tap the blue ”Clear Data” button at the bottom. A box will pop up showing some of the included things that will be removed and you simply need to tap on ”Clear” to make them go poof.

You have now been taken back to the main ”History” screen. Now, I want you to tap where it says ”myactivity.google.com”.

This area will show absolutely everything you have done on your phone: which apps you opened, how long you spent on them and so on. This can be information you do not wish to have hanging around. You can clear everything in one fell swoop or pick and choose. To get rid of particular items, just tap at the right of the item then select ”Delete”.

If you want to wipe all this information out, go to the top of the MyActivity page. At the right, select , then ”Delete Activity By”.

Scroll down to where you see ”Delete by Date” and tap the down-arrow next to the top box where you see ”Today”.

Change this to ”All Time” and make sure the bottom line is set to ”All Products”.

Now, tap the ”Delete” button at the bottom. A small confirmation box will pop up. Scroll down and tap ”Delete”.

That’s it! You’ve successfully deleted all of your history from Google on your mobile device.

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How to Clear Google Search History on Desktop

In Chrome (while signed in), hold

How to Clear Google Search History on Desktop

ng> keys together. Your browsing history is laid out before you, with boxes to the left of each item. If there are certain items you wish to delete instead of everything, select the items, then select ”Delete” at the top-right of the page.

If you wish to clear everything, select on the left where you see ”Clear Browsing Data”. A new window will open in your ”Settings”.

The first option is the “Basic“ cleanup. This option will work for most people. Choose your time range and check all three boxes, then select ”Clear Data”.

If you wish to clean up a bit more, select the ”Advanced” tab, instead of “Basic”. Here you will find more choices. The first three are the same as those in the Basic cleaning setting. Next you can choose to get rid of cached images and files. Then there are a few odds and ends you may want to get rid of, as well:

The first option is ”Passwords and other sign-in data” if you want all of your passwords to be removed.

The next option is ”Autofill Form Data”. Want your stored addresses and phone numbers removed? Select this box.

Ahhhhh, ”Site Settings” is next. What does this mean, exactly? The site settings in Chrome describes how you allow things such as cookies, Flash items and photos to be handled while you browse. The settings control what types of things a website can render to you and what types of information each site can use as you browse around online. I recommend just leaving this alone.

The last choice is ”Hosted App Data”. Your hosted app data is simply any data from apps you have added to Chrome from the Web Store. This includes any storage used by offline apps. This setting can usually be left alone.

Once you have made all of your selections, select the blue button at the bottom, and you are finished!

What other privacy issues can I help you with? What concerns do you have?

Happy SAFE browsing!