Learn How to Password Protect Your Google Search History from Prying Eyes & More

Google has added a way to put a password on your Web and Activity page, which shows all your activity from across Google services, including your searches, YouTube watch history, and Google assistant queries (via Android Police). Without the verification, anyone who picks up a device you’re logged into could see that activity.

To activate the verification, you can go to activity.google.com, and click the Manage My Activity verification link. From there, you can select the Require Extra Verification option, save, and enter your password to confirm that you’re the one trying to make the change.

 

The page can be very revealing, but also lets you manage a ton of your data in one place.

If you don’t have the verification turned on, visiting activity.google.com will show a stream of your Google activity from across your devices, without asking for a password.

 

Search history can show a lot about a person.

Turning on verification, however, will require whoever’s trying to see the information to click the Verify button and enter the Google account password before it’ll show any history. For those who share a computer, or who sometimes lets others who aren’t exactly trustworthy use their device, this could be a very useful toggle.

 

Now no one will know.

While you’re on the Web and App Activity page, you can also take a look at what activity Google is saving, and whether it’s being auto-deleted. Then, you can decide if you’re happy with those settings. If not, this is the page to change them.

At Google’s I/O keynote last week, it talked a lot about privacy with its announcement of Android’s new Private Compute Core, a locked photos folder, and the ability to quickly delete your past 15 minutes of browsing in Chrome.