Google has been making some foundational changes in an effort to project itself as a privacy-respecting company. Last month, Google added some key controls which let you change how Google retains your data. Unlike earlier, now you can auto-delete your web activity and location history from 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’s Activity Controls page. 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 after 3 or 18 months. After that, click on “Next”.
4. On the next page, click on “Confirm” to make a permanent change.
5. If you don’t want Google to track and 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 will permanently stop Google from retaining your location history, YouTube, and web activity. Keep in mind, this also means that your Google experience will become less personalized.
Take Control of Your Data on Google
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 to completely get rid of Google from your digital life then you can go through our detailed tutorial.
