Bad news for people trying to clear their Google Chrome search history after an embarrassing search — you’re probably doing it wrong.
It turns out that your search data will remain in Google unless you take the extra step of clearing it completely.
People usually try to clear their data by pressing “control” + “Y” on the keyboard or clicking the three dots in the top right corner of Chrome and choosing “History”. Users can then select “Clear browsing data”.
However, to completely get rid of the data associated with your account, there is another hidden step to take.
To clear your data from Google, you first have to click on the profile icon in the upper right corner next to the search bar.
Next, you’ll click on “Manage your account,” which will take you to a screen with a bunch of tabs.
The best way to access your browsing data is to type “my activity” into the search bar within the page — not the one at the top of the screen — and tap it when it appears. This will open a window with all your previous searches.
From here, you can either filter based on website or date, or simply click the Delete button to clear them all. There will be an option to delete all searches ever made or only within a certain time frame.
Before everything is completely cleared, Google will tell you which products your searches are scrolling from, whether it’s Chrome or YouTube too.
Your browsing history will be completely erased, but Google still keeps some other data in order to help improve its services.
We keep some data for the duration of your Google Account if it is useful to help us understand how users interact with our features and how we can improve our services. Google Privacy Terms status.
“For example, after you delete a specific Google search from My Activity, we may keep information about how often you search for things, but not what you search for. When you delete your Google account, information about how often you search for things is also removed.” .
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