Google My Activity: How to See, Delete and Auto-Delete Your History

Google My Activity is the page in your Google Account (myactivity.google.com) that lists what Google has saved from your use of its services: searches, sites visited in Chrome when history syncing is on, YouTube watches and searches, voice and Assistant requests, and activity in other Google apps. You can delete single items, a date range or everything, filter by product, and turn on auto-delete so activity older than 3, 18 or 36 months is removed automatically.

Deleting your history here is a private clean-up. It changes what Google keeps in your account, not what the world can find about you. This guide covers both sides: how to use My Activity well, and what it can’t do.

What Google My Activity shows

My Activity is a timeline of activity saved to your account under Google’s activity controls. What appears depends on which controls you’ve left on:

• Web and App Activity. Searches on Google, activity in Google apps such as Maps and Play, and, if you’ve included it, Chrome history and activity on sites and apps that use Google services.
• YouTube History. Videos you’ve watched and searches you’ve made on YouTube.
• Location. Google has been moving location history (Timeline) to your device rather than your account, so on many accounts it’s now managed in the Maps app rather than shown in My Activity. Check the Maps settings on your phone to see how yours is set up.

There is also an “Other activity” area linked from My Activity. It covers things that don’t fit the main timeline, such as some ad-related information and data from specific products. It’s worth a look if you want the full picture.

Google can ask you to verify your identity again before showing your full history. Turning on that extra verification is a sensible choice on a shared computer, since your activity page can reveal a lot.

How to delete activity in My Activity

Google offers several levels of deletion. Use whichever matches the problem.

Delete a single item

1. Open My Activity while signed in to the right account.
2. Find the item, using the search bar or scrolling the timeline.
3. Open the item’s menu and choose delete.

Delete by date or product

1. Open the delete option at the top of My Activity.
2. Choose a preset (such as the last hour or last day), all time, or a custom range.
3. If offered, select which Google products to include, for example only Search or only YouTube.
4. Confirm.

Filter first, then delete

You can filter the timeline by date and product, or search it for a term, then delete the filtered results. This is the quickest way to remove, say, every search you made about a medical condition or a job you applied for, without wiping everything else.

How auto-delete works

Auto-delete is the most useful setting in My Activity for most people. For each activity control that supports it, you can choose to keep activity until you delete it manually, or have Google delete activity older than 3, 18 or 36 months automatically.

Once it’s on, Google removes anything older than your chosen period on a rolling basis. Recommendations and autocomplete still have recent history to work with, but years of searches don’t pile up in your account.

Auto-delete choice	Good fit for	Trade-off
3 months	People who want minimal history kept, or share a device	Recommendations and “continue watching” style features have less to go on
18 months	Most people: a balance between convenience and privacy	Over a year of activity is still stored at any time
36 months	People who rely heavily on personalized suggestions	A long record remains if the account is ever compromised
Off (keep until deleted)	People who want a full personal archive	Nothing is removed unless you do it yourself

Set auto-delete separately for Web and App Activity and for YouTube History. They’re controlled individually.

Pausing versus deleting

Each activity control can also be paused. Pausing stops new activity being saved to your account; it doesn’t delete what’s already there. Deleting removes what’s there but doesn’t stop new activity being saved. For a real clean-up, do both: delete the past, then pause or set auto-delete for the future.

Pausing Web and App Activity makes some features less personalized. Search still works, but suggestions and some app features rely on that history. Many people find auto-delete a better middle ground than pausing outright.

What deleting your activity doesn’t do

My Activity controls a record kept inside your own account. It has limits worth being clear about:

• It doesn’t remove you from search results. Deleting your searches has no effect on what others find when they search your name. News articles, reviews, social posts and people search listings are published by other sites, and they need separate removal routes.
• It doesn’t delete other people’s copies. Emails you sent, files you shared and comments you posted exist in other accounts and on other sites.
• It doesn’t clear your browser or device. Chrome keeps its own local history, and your phone keeps app data. Clear those separately if someone else uses your device.
• It doesn’t make you invisible to others. Your employer, school or internet provider may still see traffic on their networks, and websites you visit keep their own logs.
• It isn’t always instant or total. Google says in its privacy policy that deletion starts right away but takes time to complete across its systems, and that some data may be kept longer for specific reasons such as security, fraud prevention or legal obligations.
• Incognito isn’t the same thing. Searches in an Incognito window aren’t saved to your account, but sites and networks can still see your visits.

A worked example

This is illustrative, not a real client. Harriet shares a family laptop and has been researching a divorce lawyer, a new apartment and a health issue. She’s worried a family member could open her Google account on the shared computer and see all of it.

She opens My Activity, searches for the lawyer’s firm name and deletes the matching results, then does the same for the apartment listings and the health searches. She sets Web and App Activity to auto-delete after 3 months and does the same for YouTube History. She turns on the extra verification for viewing her activity page.

She then clears Chrome’s local history on the laptop, signs out of her account there, and sets up a separate browser profile for herself with its own password. Finally she changes her Google password and turns on 2-Step Verification, since the password had been saved in the shared browser for years.

Other settings to check while you’re there

My Activity is one part of your Google Account’s privacy picture. While you’re in the “Data and privacy” section, it’s worth reviewing ad personalization, what your public profile shows, and who can see your Maps reviews and YouTube activity. Our guide to Google privacy settings covers those in detail, so we won’t repeat them here.

If you’d like a copy of your history before deleting it, Google Takeout lets you export your data. Keep the export somewhere private: it’s a detailed record of your life online.

If a stranger may already have access to your account, sort that out first, because anyone signed in can read and delete your activity. Follow our guide to a hacked Gmail account.

When your problem is search results, not history

Many people open My Activity hoping to remove something embarrassing about them from Google. That isn’t what it does. For content published about you, the routes are:

• Your address, phone number or email in results: Google’s Results about you tool, explained in our Results about you guide.
• A page you want gone from search: see how to remove a page from Google search.
• Negative articles or posts that won’t come down: this is where suppression and removal work comes in, and our personal reputation management service can help.

Common mistakes

• Deleting without setting auto-delete. The history builds back up. Set a period so the clean-up keeps itself going.
• Signed in to the wrong account. Many people have a work and a personal Google account. Check the profile picture in the corner before you delete.
• Forgetting YouTube. YouTube History is a separate control with its own auto-delete setting.
• Assuming Chrome is covered. Local browser history on each device needs clearing separately.
• Expecting it to change search results. Deleting your history won’t affect what others see when they search for you.

Frequently asked questions

Can other people see my Google My Activity?

No, not unless they can sign in to your Google account. That’s why account security and signing out of shared devices matter. You can also require extra verification before your activity page opens.

Does deleting Google activity delete it permanently?

Google begins deleting it right away and it disappears from your account, but Google says full removal from its systems takes time and some data may be kept longer for security, fraud or legal reasons.

What auto-delete options does Google offer?

You can have activity older than 3, 18 or 36 months deleted automatically, or keep it until you delete it yourself. Set it separately for Web and App Activity and YouTube History.

Will deleting my Google search history remove me from search results?

No. Your search history is a private record in your account. What other people find when they search your name comes from other websites and needs separate removal requests.

Does Incognito mode save to My Activity?

Searches made while signed out in an Incognito window aren’t saved to your account’s activity. Websites, your employer or school, and your internet provider can still see your traffic.