Google collects and remembers information about your activity, including your web, search and location history. Google now automatically deletes new user history after 18 months, but it will remember history forever if you have previously enabled this feature with default options.
As an existing user, in order for Google to delete your data after 18 months, you will need to go to your activity settings and change this option. You can also ask Google to automatically delete activity after three months or to stop collecting activities altogether.
To find these options, go to the Activity controls page and sign in with your Google account if you are not already signed in. Click the “Automatically delete” option under Web & Apps Activity.
Select when you want to delete the data – after 18 months or 3 months. Click “Next” and Confirm to continue.
Please note: Google uses this history to personalize your experience, including your web search results and recommendations. Removing it will make your Google experience less “personalized”.
Scroll down the page and repeat this process for other types of data that you might want to automatically delete, including location history and YouTube history.
You can also disable (“pause”) the collection of activity history by clicking the slider to the right of a data type. If it’s blue, it’s on. If it is grayed out, it is disabled.
If the “Automatic deletion” option for a type of historical data is grayed out, then you have put the collection of this data to sleep (disabled).
You can also go to My activity page and use the “Delete activity by” option in the left sidebar to manually delete various types of data stored in your Google account.
Remember to repeat this process for each Google Account you use.
