How to Delete Google Search History

A user may want to learn how to delete their search history for a variety of reasons. Don't worry, we won't go into the detail as to why would a user like to do so. Google search history means all the search pages of Google that are generated, once you type a particular query on the Google search box. There are various methodologies to do so and even a search in the Google search engine itself, will let you know about the same.

First of all, let us try to understand, what exactly is Google's web history. Google's web history, can only be kept by Google, if you are using the Google toolbar and you are logged into Google. It does not store everything like the secured sites, those starting with https. However, if you are logged in and you have selected the options and enabled the Page Info and Page Rank options, chances are that Google will record your search history, but just the urls for your particular account and with a time and date stamp. This is however a utility provided by Google, so that you can check the searched pages at a later point of time. However if you want to delete the Google web history, you can follow the following steps.

How to Delete Google Web History from Your Account?
First go to the Google Search Engine home page and click on the Sign in Option at the upper right hand corner of the Google home page. Sign into your account and click the My Account link. Now, go to the Edit link, and click on 'Delete Web History'. A warning will be displayed. Click on ' Yes, I want to permanently remove Web history from my Google account', then enter your current Google password and then click remove web history.

Clear History from Google Toolbar
Suppose you type in something at the Google Toolbar. Chances are that the next time you click the down arrow adjacent to the toolbar, your previous searches will be visible. To delete this, you can follow the following steps. Just click on the down arrow adjacent to the Google Search box in the toolbar and select clear history. It is as simple as that. Let us now go into the details of deleting the browsing history in different web browsers.

Deleting Google Search History in Different Browsers

Firefox
In Firefox version 2 or 3, you can simply go to Tools > Clear Private Data and select Saved Form and Search History. Then click on the button, 'Clear Private Data Now'. This will do the job. For later versions like Firefox 3.5.8, you can go to Tools > Options > Privacy and click on the link that says, click your recent history.

Internet Explorer
In Internet Explorer 7, you can go to Tools and select 'Delete Browsing History' and click on Delete Forms. On this confirmation window, click Yes. In Internet Explorer 6 you can go to Tools menu and select Internet Options. Then select the Content tab and click the AutoComplete button. The click on the Clear Forms button, to delete search history.

Safari
The process for deleting Google search history in Apple's Safari web browser also needs to be explained. Go to the Safari menu and select Preferences > Autofill. Then click on the edit button and select the url of the home pager of Google from the list. Then click Remove > Done. This will do the job for you.

Google Chrome
In Google Chrome, Google's web browser, you can delete the search history and the browsing history, by going to Tools menu and selecting history. You can then select the option for what is the time period for which you want the history to be deleted and then delete the history.

There may also be an instance when you do not want anything to be stored in your history. If you do not want any of your records to be stored in the browser history, you can try out the following ways.

• In Firefox, you can go to Tools > Options. Next select the Privacy tab. Here you get the options for Firefox, whether to remember your history or not.
• In Internet Explorer, you can go to Tools > Internet Options and under the general tab, select the option to 'delete browsing history on exit'.

One thing that needs to be mentioned here is that, Google search engine uses a system called Google Suggest. This is a way for helping the user. When you type a word or letter, the most searched results are displayed in a drop down format below the dialog box. If you continue typing, the suggestions may change and you can select any of them. However, it has nothing to do, with your search history. Because of Google suggest, in fact, you need not worry, that your previous search will be displayed in the drop down format in the Google Search Box. So this was all about how to delete Google search history. You must have already realized that it is not a complicated task.