Guide

How to delete adult searches from your Google account activity

If you search or browse while signed in to Google, the record can be saved in your account — at myactivity.google.com — completely separate from Chrome's history. Here is how to delete what's there, set the account to clean itself, and stop new activity from being saved at all.

Updated August 19, 2026 · Applies to Chrome on Windows, Mac, and Linux

First: delete specific searches and visits at My Activity

Go to myactivity.google.com and make sure you're signed in to the account you use in Chrome. Everything on this page lives in the account, not in the browser.
Use the Search your activity box at the top: type the exact words you searched, or a site's name (for example, late-night-video.example). It finds searches and visited pages together.
To remove a single item, click the × on it — or open its ⋮ (More options) menu and choose Delete. The item is gone from the account immediately; there is no bin to empty.
Run the search again with a second spelling or a related term — adult sites and NSFW searches often show up under several different wordings.

Delete in bulk: a day, a date range, or everything

Just under the search box, click Delete. You'll be offered Last hour, Last day (the past 24 hours), Custom range (pick a start and end date), and All time, which empties the store completely. The same menu offers Auto-delete — worth setting up next so you don't have to come back.

Set the account to clean itself with auto-delete

In that same Delete menu, choose Auto-delete and pick Auto-delete activity older than 3, 18, or 36 months. Google deletes everything older than the window you chose right away, then keeps deleting on a rolling basis. One honest caveat: the shortest window is three months, so recent activity still sits in the account until it ages out.

Stop new searches and visits from being saved

Open myactivity.google.com/activitycontrols.
Under Web & App Activity, click Turn off. You can choose Turn off to stop saving from now on, or Turn off and delete activity to clear the store in the same step.
There's also a middle path: leave the setting on but untick Include Chrome history and activity from sites, apps, and devices that use Google services. Your Google searches keep being saved, but Chrome page visits stop landing in the account.

One neighbor worth knowing about: YouTube History is its own store with its own delete and turn-off controls on that same page.

The account and the browser are two separate stores

Nothing you just did touched Chrome. Clearing chrome://history never touches My Activity, and deleting My Activity never touches chrome://history — each keeps its own copy of what you searched and visited. For a genuinely clean slate, do both: this page for the account, and the Chrome history guide for the browser.

What the manual routine misses

Being honest about the clean-up you just did:

It's retroactive. The searches sat in your account from the moment you made them until the moment you remembered to clean up.
It's per-account, not per-device. Clearing the account does nothing to the browser history saved on each computer — that's a separate clean-up on every device.
There are two stores to remember. It's easy to clear the browser and forget the account, or the other way around; each keeps its own copy.
Auto-delete is slow. Its shortest window is three months, so recent activity lingers until it ages out.

What this can't do

Neither the steps above nor any browser extension — Sunda Spotless included — can reach records kept elsewhere:

Your internet provider's connection logs
Your router's or DNS resolver's logs at home
Monitoring software on an employer's or school's network or device
Browser history already synced to your other devices (until those devices sync a deletion)
Your Google account's Web & App Activity, from inside the browser — no extension can touch your account; the My Activity steps above are the only way to clear it

Questions people ask next

I cleared my Chrome history — why do my searches still show at myactivity.google.com?

Because they're two separate stores. Chrome's history lives in the browser on your computer; My Activity lives in your Google account. Clearing chrome://history never touches the account, and deleting account activity never touches the browser. To remove a search everywhere, do both.

Does deleting My Activity remove the searches from my other devices?

The account store, yes — there is one copy per account, so once you delete an item at myactivity.google.com it's gone no matter which device you check from. Each device's local browser history is a different store, though, and it stays until it's cleared on that device.

Will auto-delete remove what's already saved?

Yes. When you choose 3, 18, or 36 months, Google deletes everything older than that window right away and keeps deleting on a rolling basis. Anything newer than the window stays until it ages out, so pair auto-delete with a one-time Delete for recent items.

If I turn off Web & App Activity, does Google stop saving my searches?

It stops saving them to your account, so nothing new appears in My Activity. It doesn't delete what's already there — do that separately — and it doesn't affect records kept outside your account, like your internet provider's logs or a workplace network's monitoring.

Does this also clear my YouTube history?

No. YouTube History is its own store with its own control on the same page — open myactivity.google.com/activitycontrols and delete or turn it off under YouTube History separately.