How to Delete Your Google Search History

The quickest way to delete your Google search history is the My Activity page in your Google Account: open it, choose Delete, pick a time range and confirm. That clears the searches saved to your account. Your browser keeps a separate list of its own, though, so a thorough clean-up usually takes two stops.

Two histories, two places

Search records can sit in more than one spot, and mixing them up is why people "delete everything" and still see old queries pop up.

Delete searches from your account on a computer

1. Sign in to your Google Account and open Data & privacy.
2. Under the history settings, choose My Activity.
3. Click Delete above the activity list.
4. Choose Last hour, Last day, All time or Custom range.
5. For longer ranges you are usually asked which products to include. Leave only Search ticked if you want to keep, say, your YouTube and Maps history.
6. Confirm. The removed items vanish from the list straight away.

To remove a single search, find it in the list and use the small delete icon beside it.

Delete it in the Google app on a phone

On Android or iPhone, open the Google app, tap your profile picture and choose Search history. From there you can delete a time range, or use the shortcut that removes the last fifteen minutes. That one is handy after looking up a present on a phone someone else borrows.

Let it clean itself

Rather than remembering to clear things by hand, switch on auto-delete. In the Web & App Activity controls, choose Auto-delete and set how old activity has to be before it goes: three, eighteen or thirty-six months. A shorter setting means less stored about you, but also fewer tailored suggestions and "pick up where you left off" prompts.

Or stop saving it at all

Turning off Web & App Activity stops new searches from being saved to your account. Search keeps working as normal; results are simply not shaped by your past activity. There is a sub-setting for Chrome history and activity from other apps and devices, so check that one too if you want a clean break.

Clear the browser's own history

Account settings never touch the history list inside your browser. In Chrome on a computer, press Ctrl+Shift+Delete on Windows or Cmd+Shift+Delete on a Mac, choose a time range and tick browsing history. On a phone, open Chrome's menu, go to History and tap Delete browsing data. Other browsers keep the same option under History or Privacy.

If only a few sites need to go, open the history list and remove those entries individually. And if a site keeps pulling you in, wiping it from history will not help much; blocking websites on Chrome is the better fix.

What deleting does not do

• It does not remove records held by the websites you visited, an employer's or school's network, or your internet provider.
• It does not touch other Google products unless you select them.
• Private or Incognito windows stop history being saved on that device, but they do not hide your visit from the sites themselves or from whoever runs the network.
• Google's privacy policy says some data may be kept for a limited time for specific business or legal reasons, even after you delete it from view.

A quick account check while you are there

Since you are already in the account settings, take a minute to confirm that your recovery phone number and email are current and that two-step verification is on. The same advice runs through our guide to backing up photos so you never lose them, because a locked account takes everything stored in it along with it. If the inbox could use attention too, the Gmail clean-up walkthrough pairs nicely with this one.

Quick answers

Will deleting search history remove my saved passwords?

Not unless you tick passwords on the browser's clear-data screen. Leave that box empty and your logins stay put.

Can other people on a shared computer still see my searches?

If everyone uses the same browser profile, yes, until the browser history is cleared as well. Separate browser profiles or separate user accounts on the computer are the tidy long-term answer.

Does deleting history log me out of websites?

Only if you also clear cookies. History and cookies are separate boxes on the clear-data screen, so you can remove one without the other.