How to Access and Use Google’s ‘My Activity’ Feature!

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google my activity

Google is a data-driven company, so it uses some of the information it gets from its users to make better goods and services in the future. It could be anything, like your unique advertising ID, what you look for on the web, or how you use its platforms.

Since they use the official Google Play Services, even

the best Android phones on the market can be watched this way. To make a personalized experience, you’ll have to give up some of your info for it to work right.

At the same time, you have more power than ever over the information on your Google account. With the My Activity tool, you can choose what information is saved to your account and how much you share with Google.

Your search data is automatically deleted after a few months to make things better. Before this, you might have had years’ worth of search information from old devices sitting on your account.

This guide tells you everything you need to know about the Google My Activity tool.

How to Use The Google App to Get to “My Activity”

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There are different ways to find the Google My Activity tool on Android, so there probably isn’t a single way that works for everyone. But you can get to your Google account’s main settings page by doing the following:

  1. Open the Google app.
  2. Tap your profile icon in the upper-right corner.
  3. Under your selected account, tap the Google Account button. The button in older versions of the Google app is labeled as Manage your Google Account.
  4. Tap the Data & Privacy tab at the top of the screen.
  5. Scroll down to the History settings section and tap the My Activity button.

How to Use a Computer Browser to Get to “My Activity”

You can also use a web browser to open the Google My Activity page. You can do this on a computer or Chromebook, or you can add a link icon to your phone’s home screen to make it easy to get to.

In the image below, you can see how to use a shortcut on your home screen to get to the “My Activity” feature on your Android phone.

  • Visit the My Activity main page in your favorite web browser from your smartphone.
  • Open your browser settings (the three-dot menu in most cases) and tap Add to the Home screen to create a shortcut.
  1.  This shortcut feature for Android smartphones works with Google Chrome and supported web browsers.
  • Tap Add.
  • Tap the Add to Home screen button to place the icon on your home screen. Alternatively, long press the shortcut icon and drop it anywhere you want on your home screen.

How to Use “My Activity” To Control the History of Your Google Account

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Now that you can use your device’s “My Activity” option, it’s time to set up your Google account’s history. The main Activity Controls page has three activity controls: Web & App Activity, Location History, and YouTube History.

Look at each one and choose the ones that fit your needs the best. In the parts below, we explain how to use each of the controls on the Activity page.

Website and App Actions

The options for your web and app search history can be found in the Web & App Activity section. Google says that leaving this setting on will improve your general experience as a user.

This lets you get search results faster and makes Google’s suggestions better for many of its services. The history of your account can also be helpful in some cases. For example, say you did a lot of study on a certain subject.

You can easily look at your search records if you want to find something you’ve already looked for. Many third-party apps need Google Play Services to work, which means they can usually keep track of you.

It’s not just what you look up on the web. Some of what you do in these apps can be kept track of. Most of the time, this is done to show you appropriate ads or make the app easier to use. It’s not meant to get too close to your private life.

This app data is only saved to your account history if you choose to track behavior in apps, which is an optional setting.

If the feature is enabled, and you want to disable it to increase the privacy of your Google account, do the following:

  1. Tap the Turn off button to get started.
  2. Read through the description as needed, then scroll down.
  3. Tap the Pause button to turn off the setting.
  4. Tap Delete old activity, then select All time. This removes your previous search history from your Google account.
  5. Select the products you want to wipe the activity history, and then select Next.
  6. Tap Delete. The activity history for the selected services is removed from your Google account.
  7. Tap Got it to finish.

You can also control the information saved in the history for each Google service or app by tapping its icon in the part called “See and delete activity.”

You can do this by hand for each app or service, giving you more power over them. This can be helpful if you only want to save certain things to your account and not everything.

Location History

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You might not want to use this feature because it tracks your location history, which is a sensitive subject. You have to turn on the setting for your account to track your position. Still, there are times when it’s better to let it happen.

For example, you get suggestions for places to visit based on where you’ve been in the past. If you like finding new places to shop or eat, this could help you at home or when you travel.

By turning on location history, you can see your journey routes in Google Maps Timeline. You can go back to your schedule and see where you were on a certain day, as well as a rough idea of what time you were there.

You don’t have to turn this on for your account, but it’s a nice bonus that will help you see when and where you’ve been. To get your Google account to keep track of where you’ve been, do the following:

  1. Under the Location History section, tap the Turn on the button.
  2. Read through the description as needed, then scroll down.
  3. Tap the Turn on button to enable the feature for your Google account.
  4. Tap Got it to finish up here.

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YouTube History

The YouTube History setting remembers the videos you’ve watched and what you’re looking for. This makes your video suggestions better and lets you pick up where you left off in a movie.

As with any tool that lets you customize your experience, this one needs some of your user data to work. If you turn this setting off, you can still use YouTube, but you won’t be able to use these extra tools.

If you care more about your privacy than these extra YouTube tools, you can turn them off by:

  1. Under the YouTube History section, tap the Turn off button.
  2. Read through the description, then scroll down if needed.
  3. Tap the Pause button to disable the YouTube History setting on your Google account.
  4. Tap Delete old activity.
  5. Select All Time.
  6. Tap the Delete button to delete your YouTube search history.
  7. Look over the preview of what will be removed before moving on to be safe.
  8. Tap Got it to return to the main page.

My Activity Gives You Power Over Your Google Account’s Search History

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The My Activity feature gives you an easy-to-use dashboard where you can see and control the data and web searches you’ve shared with Google. It makes it harder for Google to track you and makes it harder for other people to mine your info.

Since they use Google Play Services, you have more control over how much of your personal information these companies can keep track of.

This gives you more control over your Google account, which is helpful when personal information and privacy are so important to our safety online.

Check out the best ways to protect your privacy on any Android phone if you want to share less information with Google. Getting Google to use less space on your device can make you feel better, especially when you use the My Activity option.