How to delete the data Google has about you

Think about everything you do on Chrome, Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube, and everything else Google has and you’ll get an idea of ​​how much data you’re giving up to the company every day. For most of us, it’s… a lot.

Whether or not you think data collection and targeted advertising is a worthwhile trade-off for the free apps you get in return, Google at least provides a comprehensive online dashboard that you can use to see some of what is being collected.

You can use it to delete everything Google has already collected, prevent it from collecting anything in the future, or automatically delete your data after a set period of time (like three months). You can also use these features to clear the records if you’re planning to delete your Google account – although the deletion process should also erase all data associated with your account.

See how to use the options available to you.

Getting started is very easy: open your Google account page in a browser of your choice, logging in if necessary. On this screen, you can see your Google subscriptions, the devices you’re signed in to with your Google account, and the passwords you’ve saved, among other information.

Right now we are interested in data.

• Click Data and privacy to the left.
• To search for History Settings. It’s divided into three main categories: Web & Apps, Location, and YouTube.
• click on the My activity button at the bottom of this section to see a complete list of this data. You’ll see everything you’ve done and recorded in Google products, starting with the most recent.
• Select Filter by date and product to limit results to certain date ranges or certain applications.
• To remove a filter you have applied, click the icon X next to it at the top of the list.
• Click any entry in the list to see more details about it, if available. You can open YouTube videos you’ve watched, for example, or websites you’ve visited.

When it comes to data that has already been collected and recorded by Google, you can erase it in a few different ways.

• If you are seeing the full list of activities, click Delete (to the right of the filter). You can clear records for the last hour, the last day, or within a custom range. You can also click Ever to delete everything.
• If you filtered the list by date or product, click Delete results: This clears everything that matches the filter.
• Whether the list is filtered or not, you can click the X next to any entry to delete it.

It’s useful to have this central repository of all your data available on a web portal, but you can also find some types of data in other places. You can delete your web activity from within Chrome as long as you’re signed in to Google, for example, or access your YouTube watch history through the YouTube website.

If you want Google to automatically delete your data or stop collecting data, you need to use the three categories we mentioned earlier: Web & Apps, Location, and YouTube.

In the list of activities, click Web and app activity, Location historyor YouTube History. The next options screen you’ll see is very similar across all three categories:

• Click To switch off stop collecting data in this specific category. If you select this option, you can choose between To switch off (to keep everything collected so far) or Shut down and delete activities.
• If you choose to delete data, you will be shown a preview of what is being deleted before confirming the action.
• Further down the page, select Choose an automatic deletion option so that the data in this category is deleted after a certain time: 3 months, 18 monthsor 36 months.

You’ll also see some sub-settings on these screens, such as searches you’ve performed on YouTube or voice and audio activity that may be collected through your interactions with Google Assistant.

Obviously, there are some compromises to consider here. If you’re visiting a specific coffee shop on Google Maps, it’s helpful to have it automatically appear when you need directions to get there. Likewise, if you like some YouTube videos, you probably want to see more videos in the same vein, rather than something displayed randomly.

The auto-delete option strikes a good balance in this regard, as it means you get some level of customization without having all your activity saved on Google’s servers forever.

By the way, if you try to turn off any of this data collection (or turn it back on), Google will display an information panel explaining how the collected data helps personalize services for you across various apps. In other words, Google definitely wants you to allow the collection of this data, but in the end the choice is yours.