Steps To Delete Your Google Data Automatically

Google gathers a lot of data and uses it for curating content recommendations on YouTube, Google Play, and other services, as well as marketing ads based on users’ activity. However, the tech giant has also let users have greater control over how their data is handled, including the ability to delete the data automatically on a regular basis.

First of all, there are three categories of data that you can choose to delete automatically: Web and app history, Google Maps history and GPS location data, and YouTube search and watch histories. You can access such data from the activity dashboard in your Google Account.

What are the reasons for deleting your Google data

Firstly, that will give you more personal privacy, especially with Google maps and location data. Meanwhile, YouTube history is a different kind of data from credentials like bank info, ID number, or name, all of which are handled differently.

Besides, data deletion helps you with up-to-date content curation. Since we all change and our tastes switch over time, deleting your data makes Google Play, YouTube and other services make fresher recommendations in correspondence to your interests at the time.

Guideline on auto-deleting your Google data

The following steps are specifically for the web, but the process for mobile is almost the same:

• You need to first open your activity dashboard in your Google Account, after signing in.
• Now, you will see Activity controls on the sidebar on the left, click on it.
• Next, scroll down to the type of data you want to manage and click on Manage Activity.
• Then, under the calendar icon, click Choose how long to keep and choose either 3 or 18 months for the auto-deletion time. You can also choose manual deletion.
• To save the changes, click on Next.

You will have to do these steps again for each data type you wish to be deleted automatically. And regarding Location History, you have to click Today from the upper left corner before clicking the gear icon for the lower right corner. Next, you need to choose Automatically delete Location History then select a time.