How to Auto-Delete Web and Location History on Google

Jul. 17, 2020

Google has been making some foundational changes in an effort to project itself as a privacy-respecting company. Last month,Google added some key controlswhich let you change how Google retains your data. Unlike earlier, now you can auto-delete your web activity andlocation historyfrom your Google account. For new accounts, auto-deletion is enabled by default, but for existing Google accounts, you need to enable the option manually. That’s why we bring you this short tutorial on how to auto-delete web and location history on Google. With that in mind, let’s jump to the steps without any delay.

Auto-Delete Web and Location History on Google

1. First and foremost, open Google’sActivity Controlspage. If you are not signed in then log in to your Google account.

2. Here, click on “Auto-delete(off)”.

3. Now, you can choose the option to auto-delete your Google activity after3 or 18 months. After that, click on “Next”.

4. On the next page, click on “Confirm” to make apermanentchange.

5. If youdon’t want Google to trackand keep a record of your activity across its services then disable the toggle for “Web and App Activity”.

6. Similarly, scroll down and disable the toggle for “Location History” and “YouTube History”. This way, you willpermanently stop Googlefrom retaining your location history, YouTube, and web activity. Keep in mind, this also means that your Google experience will become less personalized.

So that is how you can set up auto-deletion of location history and web activity on Google. For a long time, Google has been accused of harvesting too much personal data, so these new controls are a welcome change. Even if you are neck-deep into the Google ecosystem, I will strongly recommend you to auto-delete location history and web activity after 18 months. Anyway, that is all from us. If you found the article helpful then comment down below and let us know. Also, if you want tocompletely get rid of Googlefrom your digital life then you can go through our detailed tutorial.

Passionate about Windows, ChromeOS, Android, security and privacy issues. Have a penchant to solve everyday computing problems.