While Google has allowed users to manage their own data, the fact of the matter is that you need to actually remember to delete the data manually if you’d rather not have Google keep tabs on you at all times. For most people, this is something that they might forget to do or not even know it exists.
However, the good news is that Google has recently announced that they will be allowing users to auto-delete their data, meaning that users can set it so that every few months, their data will be deleted. If this sounds like something you might be interested in, here’s how you can turn on auto-delete for your Google account.
How To Turn On Auto-Delete For Web & App Activity
- Go to your Google Account’s Activity Controls page
- Under Web & App Activity, click Manage Activity
- Scroll down until you see the button that says Choose to delete automatically and click on it
- Choose any of the options and click Next. At the moment Google only allows users to choose manual, 18-months, or 3-months, meaning that if you want to delete your data on a weekly or monthly basis, you’ll have to do it manually.
- You will be prompted that if you chose any of the auto-delete options, that it will now delete all data dating back 3-months or 18-months. Click Confirm if you want to proceed.
How To Pause Google’s Data Collection On You
- Go to your Google Account’s Activity Controls page
- Under of the groups of data that Google collects on you, there will be a toggle
- Tap the toggle if you’d like to pause the data collection on you
- Google will prompt and warn you that pausing data collection could have an impact on your experience with its services, but if you’re fine with that, click Pause and you are good to go
- Follow the steps above if you’d like to turn the data collection back on.
At the moment, Google only allows users to auto-delete web and app activity and location history. Google does state that the auto-delete function will be rolling out to these two first, which means that it could arrive for other settings in the future. Also, as we mentioned, Google only seems to be allowing users to choose between auto-delete intervals of either 3-months or 18-months.
For those who’d rather clear their data every week, every month, or even every day, then, unfortunately, the only option would be to opt for manual deletion. Alternatively, you can still set auto-delete which ensures that your data will be cleared every 3-months, but you can still go in and delete your data manually if you remember.
In the meantime, if you’d like to stop Google from tracking your location, you can check out our guide here.