How to access and use Google’s ‘My Activity’ feature

Google is the first place we go to when looking for information, and also the one with a lot of information on us. The search giant is so entrenched in our lives that Google can know a lot of things, including the websites we visit or searches we make online. While this data is used by Google to improve its services, Google’s ‘My Activity’ feature allows you to manage and even delete that data.

Using the My Activity feature, Google users can see their browsing history and activity across devices including Android TV. You can choose to delete your saved searches and turn off other account-related activities such as YouTube history. Before you get to deleting your Google account-related activities, let’s look at how to access the My Activity feature.

Google My Activity: How to access it from the Google app

The easiest way to access the My Activity feature is from the Google app, which is preinstalled on most Android smartphones. Once you open the app, here is how you can locate the My Activity feature:

Step 1: Open the Google app on your smartphone. 

Step 2: Click on your profile icon at the top right corner. 

Step 3: Tap on the ‘Google Account’ button under your selected Google account. If you have an older version of the Google app then it will be labelled as ‘Manage your Google Account.’ 

Step 4: Click on the ‘Data & privacy’ tab at the top of the screen.

Step 5: Scroll down to the ‘History’ settings and tap on the ‘My Activity’ button.

How to check My Activity feature from a web browser

While the Google app is the easiest way to access the My Activity feature, you can also access it using a web browser on a desktop computer or Chromebook, or even the browser on your smartphone. Here is how it works:

Step 1: Go to www.google.com and sign in with your account.

Step 2: Click on your profile icon at the upper right corner and tap on ‘Manage your Google Account’ button.

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Step 3: Tap on the ‘Data and privacy’ tab from the left-hand sidebar.

Step 4: Scroll down to ‘History’ settings and click on the ‘My Activity button.’

How to use Google's My Activity feature to manage your account

The My Activity feature is essentially a map of your activities across all Google services. As such, Google has broken down the activities into three categories: Web & App Activity, Location History, and YouTube History. Let’s look at each of these categories and the various controls associated with each of these activities.

Web & App Activity:

This is where you will find all your web and app search history. For example, if you visit Unboxed by Croma, then this web activity will get logged here. Google recommends you don’t disable this activity since it allows Google to deliver faster search results and improve recommendations across other Google services.

However, this web and app activity is data that can be used by others to serve you with ads or track you across the web. You can stop Google from tracking your Web & App Activity by clicking on your profile in the Google app and then going to Google Account > Data and privacy > History settings > My Activity > Web & App Activity. You will now have two options: ‘Turn off’ and ‘Turn off and delete activity.’

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If you don’t want Google to save your future activities then select ‘Turn off’ and click OK when the pop-up shows details of what has been turned off and how Google will use your past activity. Alternatively, you can select ‘Turn off and delete activity’ to delete your previously saved web and app activity as well. A pop-up will confirm the activity has been turned off and you can select which activity to delete. You can choose Android, Discover, or both, and tap ‘Next’ to confirm your choice. Tap on the ‘Delete’ button to complete the process and tap ‘OK’ to close the pop-up.

Location History:

If you have turned on Location History then the activity is saved to your Maps Timeline, which saves the routes you took during your voyage. From this activity section, you can see all your travels. If you don’t want Google to save your location history then you can turn it off. Under the Location History, tap on the ‘Turn off’ button, read the pop-up message and click ‘Turn off.’ Follow this, tap on ‘Got it’ to stop Google from saving your location and Google Maps timeline.

YouTube History:

Google saves a history of all the YouTube videos you watched previously and also keeps a record of all your searches. The feature is used by Google to improve your video recommendations and also allows you to resume videos where you left off. It does this by storing some of your user data and you can turn off this feature.

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Go to the My Activity section and scroll down to the ‘YouTube History’ option. Tap the ‘Turn off’ button, read the pop-up message, and click on ‘Pause.’ Press ‘OK’ to finish the process. If you want Google to delete your YouTube history completely then tap on ‘Delete old activity,’ select ‘All time’, and click on the ‘Delete’ button. Google will next show the preview of what will be deleted and you need to tap Got it to complete the process.

With t.he My Activity feature, Google is offering its users a clear window into all the data it collects about them across web and app activity, location history, and YouTube history. While the search giant claims to use this data to further improve its products, it is also possible that the data might get used by third-party apps. The My Activity not only enlightens users about this but also makes it easier to restrict such data practice.