Put Your Google History on a Timer

Open myactivity.google.com and scroll for a minute.

That is a diary of your life you did not know you were keeping.

Every search you ran, every place you went, every video you watched.

Google logs it quietly, and the list goes back years.

The good news is that you can put the whole thing on a timer.

What is actually being recorded?

Web & App Activity covers your searches, your Maps use, and how you use apps.

Location History is exactly what it sounds like: everywhere you physically go.

YouTube History is what you watch there and what you search for.

Ad personalization is the profile built from all of it, used to choose the ads you see.

None of this is hidden.

It sits on one page that almost nobody ever opens.

Most of it exists to make Google's own services work better for you.

The question is only how long any of it needs to be kept.

Go to myactivity.google.com.

Open "Activity controls".

Under each one, choose "Auto-delete" and pick 3 or 18 months.

Then switch Ad personalization off.

Three months is the more private choice.

Pick 18 months if you use Maps Timeline and enjoy looking back at old trips.

Either way, anything older than your chosen window is erased for good.

That includes the years already sitting there, not just what comes next.

You keep the last few months and the rest goes forever.

No, and this is the worry that stops most people from doing it.

Search, Maps and YouTube all keep working exactly as before.

Recommendations may feel a little less tuned to you over time.

You are not switching anything off here.

You are simply telling Google to stop keeping a permanent record.

Best of all, it is a one-time setting.

From then on it runs by itself, month after month, with nothing more from you.