How to Clear Your Google Search History on Android

This quick guide will explain how to delete your Google search history on Android. It’s a question we get asked all the time, especially when Google search is built into every aspect of our devices. This guide covers everything, including searches done on smartphones, tablets and computers. The entire Google account history, not just from one particular device.

Whether you use “Ok Google” voice search, Google Now or a browser everything is saved. If you don’t want others seeing results like Christmas shopping, you’ll need to clear the history.

Read: How to Delete Your Nexus Browser History

A similar process is deleting browser history, which we’ve detailed in our link above. However it’s slightly different and just one of many steps users take to delete information. Read on for more details on how to keep your search history private, and delete anything before it falls into the wrong hands. Or eyes.

These days most Android users have a lockscreen password, pin or fingerprint for security. Which prevents this information from being accessible. However, clearing your Google search result is still a process many should consider.

Our guide below will detail how to clear Google search results one by one, or your entire history altogether. Perfect for one or two searches, or to start fresh. Lets get started.

How to Clear Individual Search Results

First things first, we’ll want to clear individual Google search results. This is the quickest way to remove recent activity, and the easiest for others to see. Most users click the Google search bar right on their homescreen, or use Google Now.

To clear individual Google search items navigate to Google the way you normally do. Once selected it displays the last 3-5 search results. These can ruin a surprise, so follow our instructions below to delete it forever.

Once you’ve opened Google Now or Search and are ready to type, the results will be displayed as shown above.

1. Open Google Search
2. Tap search bar to open keyboard and search results
3. Long-press (press and hold) any search result you’d like to delete
4. Hit “Delete” on confirmation pop-up

That’s it. Now simply long-press and delete any and all search results necessary. However, as they are removed older recent results will then surface. Make sure to delete any of those as well if needed.

How to Clear All Google Searches on Android

If deleting your search history one at a time is taking too long, or you’d like to just wipe out everything we can do that too. Here’s how to purge the entire Google Search history for your Google account on any Android device.

Users can head into Google Now > Settings > Accounts & privacy > and navigate to “My Activity” or just click here and go to myactivity.google.com. This is the Google activity center for your entire account. It shows and saves everything. Input your Google account password, then continue on to delete your search history.

Additionally, we can delete individual days or specific things like Search and Google Chrome, or everything at once. Tap the three dots to the left of any activity, select delete, and follow the prompt to confirm. It will detail everything being erased, then select delete again. Above we deleted the entire days worth of Google search results.

However, if you want to delete absolutely everything all at once, here’s how. It’s worth noting this next section lets us delete a whole bunch of stuff. Image searches, ads, search results and more. We’ll focus on Google Search, of course.

1. Go to myactivity.google.com
2. Tap the 3-lines Menu button on the top left
3. Select “Delete Activity By”
4. Click the “All Products” dropdown box and select “Search”
5. Choose Today, Last 7 Days, or All Time 
6. Tap “Delete” then “Ok” again to confirm deletion

Google will warn you that deleting everything could remove sensitive or important information that helps their services work better. It’s fine, go ahead and hit OK and purge your Google Search results.

Other Details

We’re all done. Now your search history for whatever time-frame selected is gone forever. Owners can follow these steps again and delete a longer period of days, or choose a different category from the products drop-down. We’d advise looking through each one first before doing a mass erase.

In closing, this will delete the entire Google Search history for any device where an account is signed in. Not just history and results on Android phones or tablets.