Early bird prices are coming to an end soon... ⏰ Grab your tickets before January 17

This article was published on April 20, 2015

You can now download your Google search history, warning: may contain embarrassment


You can now download your Google search history, warning: may contain embarrassment

You can now download your Google search history.

Spotted by the unofficial Google Operating System blog and noted by Venture Beat, it’s as simple as heading to your Account History, clicking on the cog in the top-right and choosing ‘Download’.

Screen Shot 2015-04-20 at 11.51.40

Google’s made it possible to view your search history for some time, but now you can grab it to keep as an archive of JSON files, organised by quarter.

Once you’ve requested to download it, you’ll be notified almost immediately via Gmail with a link to the archive on Google Drive and the option to download it to your hard drive as a Zip file.

Screen Shot 2015-04-20 at 11.59.35

It’s worth noting that your archive only contains information from when you’ve had the feature switched on and were logged in with your Google account.

The ability to download all your searches is a handy addition to Google’s Takeout policy, which aims to make it easier for users to get at their data, but beware, your history probably contains many embarrassments. For instance, I searched for this earlier today:

➤ Download your past searches [Google via Venture Beat]

Feature image credit: Shutterstock

Read nextGoogle Lets You Download Gmail and Google Calendar Data

Get the TNW newsletter

Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.

Also tagged with