Guide

How to delete porn from your Chrome history

Whether it's one page or a whole evening, everything Chrome saved on this computer can be gone in a couple of minutes. Here is exactly where to click — one entry at a time, or a whole time range at once — plus the two hidden stores most people miss.

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

Delete the exact pages, one by one

If it's a handful of sites, this is the cleanest way: only those entries disappear, and the rest of your history stays untouched.

1. Open the history page: press Ctrl+H (Windows) or ⌘+Y (Mac), or type chrome://history into the address bar and press Enter.
2. Type the site's name into the Search history box at the top. Part of the name works too — a search for late-night-video finds every entry from late-night-video.example, including visits from days you'd forgotten about.
3. Tick the checkbox next to each entry you want gone, then press Delete in the top-right corner and confirm with Remove. For a single entry, you can instead click the ⋮ (More actions) button on its row and choose Remove from history.
4. Search again with a second spelling or a related word — adult sites often leave several entries with different page titles, and a video page and its site's front page can show up separately.

Or delete a whole time range at once

When there are too many entries to pick out by hand, clear the entire window of time instead:

1. Press Ctrl+Shift+Delete (Mac: ⌘+Shift+Delete), or type chrome://settings/clearBrowserData into the address bar. It's also in the ⋮ menu as Delete browsing data — older versions of Chrome call it Clear browsing data.
2. Pick a Time range: Last 15 minutes, Last hour, Last 24 hours, Last 7 days, Last 4 weeks, or All time. Choose the smallest range that covers what you want gone.
3. Choose what to remove. Browsing history is the list of pages you visited — that's the one you're here for. Cookies and other site data covers sign-ins and site storage: ticking it removes a saved login on an adult site, but it also signs you out of most other websites. Cached images and files are stored copies Chrome keeps to load pages faster — safe to clear, though sites load a little slower the next time.
4. Click Delete data and Chrome removes everything in that range.

Be honest with yourself about the blast radius: a time range deletes everything in it — the recipe you had open, the order confirmation — not just the NSFW pages. And an All time wipe leaves your history completely empty, which can be as noticeable as the entries themselves. For a few pages, the one-by-one method above is quieter.

Clear the address bar's memory too

The address bar keeps its own ranking of the places you visit, and a suggestion can outlive the history entry behind it. To remove one directly: start typing until the suggestion appears, highlight it with the ↓ arrow key, then press Shift+Delete — on a Mac, Shift+Fn+Delete. The suggestion disappears on the spot. There's a full guide to address bar suggestions if typed autocompletions keep resurfacing.

Don't forget downloads

If anything was downloaded, it is listed at chrome://downloads (Ctrl+J, or ⌘+Shift+J on a Mac). The × on each row removes it from the list — but the file itself stays in your Downloads folder until you delete it there and empty the bin.

Signed into Chrome? Check two more places

Chrome's local history and your Google account are two separate stores. If you were signed in and your account saves activity, the visits and searches may also be recorded at myactivity.google.com — nothing you delete in the browser touches that record. The Google account activity guide walks through clearing it.

And if Chrome Sync is on for history, the entries have already travelled to your other signed-in devices. Deleting them from chrome://history on this device removes them everywhere once each device next syncs — the sync guide shows how to check what's syncing at chrome://settings/syncSetup.

What the manual clean-up misses

Being honest about the routine you just did:

• It's a chore, every time. Every session ends with the same search-tick-delete routine — and it only works when you remember to do it.
• It's retroactive. The entries sat in your history from the moment you visited until the moment you cleaned up. Anyone at the keyboard in between could have seen them.
• Autocomplete is its own store. Deleting history doesn't always clear the address bar's ranking; suggestions can resurface until removed one by one.
• Your Google account is separate. Web & App Activity keeps its own copy that no amount of browser clearing touches.