Google might have all your voice queries stored on its servers, but the good news is that you can delete them yourself.
The company uses the voice recordings to improve its language recognition tools and boost the quality of its search engine, but this means that all your searches are archived somewhere.
Thankfully, Google offers a special page where you can peruse all the information it has on you and choose which elements you want to be forever forgotten.
To do so, simply go to Google's history page and take a look at the list of recordings. Two pages are available, one for audio searches and one for Web activity. Brace yourself for the latter, as it displays everything Google knows you've done on the internet.
The new system went live one year ago, meaning that the search engine company gathered a myriad of instances where you tapped into its capabilities.
On the upside, the voice recordings can be seen as a diary, helping you recollect where you have been and what was meaningful in that particular situation. However, it also is a cautionary tale about the sensitive information that is being collected about users, even without their knowledge.
Owners of Android phones should pay even more attention to what they utter around their phones. Keep in mind that just by saying "OK, Google," you start the Android handset on record mode.
The page allows you to listen to all your (in)voluntary recordings. Alongside the transcript of the recordings, users can see how the sound was captured, whether it was via the Google app or some other way.
So, how do you erase everything you said to Google?
Should you want to get rid of particular files, simply check the box to the left of the file and click Delete at the top of the page. If you feel like more drastic measures are necessary and want to delete all your recordings, click the More button, go to Delete Options, select Advanced and click through.
It should be mentioned that as soon as you say "OK, Google" again, the recordings begin anew. So if you're really tired of going to Google's page and deleting your voice recordings, just turn off the digital assistant and forget voice search was ever invented.
Last year in October, the company removed the "OK, Google" feature from the desktop version of Chrome, as it said that few users actually used the audio activation to begin a voice search.
