Link Safe

Google is famous for tracking our every online move. But the company also now makes it possible for you to download and review a lot of the data you leave in your wake, including your personal search history. All you need to do is log into your Google account on the Google History site (history.google.com), then click the cog icon in the top-right corner and select Download from the menu. You’ll see a warning telling you that you’re about to download sensitive personal information and offering advice on how to keep your data private (which is rather ironic considering how eagerly Google gathers it in the first place). If you’re happy to proceed, click the Create Archive button and Google will send you a link to your data archive, once it’s ready for you to download. You can then grab the ZIP file from Google Drive, extract it and use the Index file to explore your search history in your browser.

Bear in mind that downloading your search data won’t wipe it from Google  it will just let you review your history, identify trends and hold on to the info for safekeeping. However, it is possible to delete specific searches from your Google History page by ticking the unwanted terms or clicking the square at the top of the page to ‘Select all’ then clicking ‘Remove items’.