Do you have a somewhat embarrassing Google search history? Google improves search results by using your past search history to find out your habits and preferences, but sometimes you just want to forget the search that was. Fortunately, you can easily delete any past searches from Google memory, or even delete all of them in one fell swoop. See Step 1 for how to do this.
Steps
Method 1 of 3: Delete Personal Searches
Step 1. Open the Google Search History page
This is the Google page that displays all the Google searches that you performed when you signed in with your Google account. Searches made without logging in are not saved.
You can open this page at google.com/history
Step 2. Check the entries to be deleted
On the Search History page, you will see all of your searches listed for the last few days. You can see the old items by clicking the Older> button. Check the box next to each entry you want to delete.
- You can use the categories on the left side of the page to narrow down the results that are displayed.
- The checkbox will only appear next to the search term you entered, but the checkbox will also remove any of the sites you selected in that search.
- To check (turn on the checkbox) everything that is displayed on the page, click the ☐ button at the top of the list.
Step 3. Delete the marked items
Click the Remove items button below the search activity graph. All selected items will be removed from the search history.
Method 2 of 3: Deleting Your Entire Search History
Step 1. Open the Google Search History page
This is the Google page that displays all Google searches that you performed when you signed in with your Google account. Searches made without logging in are not saved.
You can open this page at google.com/history
Step 2. Open the Settings menu
You can access it by clicking on the Gear icon in the upper right corner of the page and select Settings from the menu that appears.
Step 3. Click on the "delete all" link
You can find a link to the paragraph on Google search. Clicking on this link will open a new window asking if you want to continue. If so, click the "Delete all" button.
Step 4. Turn off search history
If you'd rather not save your search history by Google, click the Turn off button on the Settings page. This will prevent Google from saving any search history that might affect the results you get.
Method 3 of 3: Removing Autocomplete from Your Browser
Step 1. Clear the auto-complete in Internet Explorer
Open the Clear Recent History window by pressing Ctrl + ⇧ Shift + Del. Check the "Form data" box to delete all saved autocomplete information. Click the Delete button to delete the entries.
Step 2. Clear autocomplete in Google Chrome
Open the "Clear browsing data" window by pressing Ctrl + ⇧ Shift + Del. Check the "Autofill form data" box and click the Clear browsing data button to remove the auto-complete entries.
Make sure the time interval is set to "the beginning of time" if you want to delete all saved records
Step 3. Clean up autocomplete in Firefox
Open the "Clear Recent History" window by pressing Ctrl + ⇧ Shift + Del. Check the "Forms & Search History" box and then click the Clear Now button to remove auto-complete records.