I reset my Google Account privacy settings for 2026 — here’s what I switched off

Our Google accounts were never managed. Stuff went in, search pulled it out, and that was the whole system.

Every search was a deposit into Google’s memory bank. A price to pay for better GPS and faster answers.

But over the last 18 months, Google has rebuilt its relationship with us.

Gemini now runs through our pockets, Docs, and Maps. Google now collects context. It has an early biography of who you are, what you fear, what you want, and even how you speak.

That’s why I decided to audit and manage what Google knows about me. What follows is a toggle-by-toggle guide to how I set up my Google account for 2026. Let’s get to work.

The AI audit: What Gemini remembers about you

This is the latest front in the privacy war. If you ignore everything else, pay attention to this section.

With Gemini set as the default, Google now observes our creative and personal processes.

Turning off Gemini’s memory to protect your privacy

When I first opened the Gemini app to start this audit, I noticed it was already using personal history in our conversations. This is the new memory feature Google rolled out globally in late 2025.

By default, Gemini references your past chats to build a picture of who you are. It is switched on by default. To see exactly what Gemini knew, I asked.

List everything you currently remember about me from past chats.

It knew who I was because of the CV I asked it to help me build. That’s on me, but in my defense, I had no idea this memory feature existed when I did it.

Go to Gemini Settings > Personal Context to see for yourself. There is a toggle for Your past chats with Gemini for Gemini’s memory. I switched it off.

I want an AI assistant that helps me in the moment, not one that builds a psychological profile over months. This is where you begin to set clear boundaries.

Keeping activity with a 3-month auto-delete window

Next, go to Gemini Settings > Activity. Here, you can find a history of every prompt, file, and photo you’ve shared with the AI.

I checked my history and found queries going back to early 2025.

Google uses samples of this activity to train its machine learning models and improve its services, and I don’t want that.

I switched off Keep Activity. There’s also an option to automatically delete data after three months.

This lets Gemini stay useful for ongoing tasks, but forget them later on. Keep that in mind, there’s a short-term buffer of up to 72 hours for safety, even if activity is turned off.

Your data might also be reviewed by human annotators, though Google says it’s anonymized.

Next, I checked the Gemini Live controls. If you delete activity from a Gemini Live chat, all related audio, transcripts, and recordings are deleted too.

Managing the Web & App Activity for better privacy control

Next up is Web & App Activity. This setting controls the bulk of the data Google collects.

It’s the main switch for your Google account, including search history, Chrome history if you sync it, Maps queries, Play Store activity, and more.

You’ll find many privacy extremists telling you to switch this off immediately. I disagree. Turning off Web & App Activity leaves the Google ecosystem in a near-lobotomized state.

The friction becomes unbearable for anyone using it every day. So instead of killing the whole system, I prefer to keep the main switch on but aggressively turn off the sub-toggles that gather data.

Sub-Toggle 1: Turning off voice and audio activity

I use voice commands all the time. “Hey Google, turn off the lights.” “Hey Google, what’s 400 degrees in Celsius?”

Google saved the actual audio files of these interactions. Google says it’s to improve its audio tech.

My account links to thousands of MP3 clips of my voice, some recorded in the privacy of my bedroom or kitchen.

Inside Web & App Activity, I turned off Include voice and audio activity.

Google’s speech recognition in 2026 is excellent. It definitely doesn’t need my specific voice clips to improve. There’s no benefit to me in storing these.

Sub-Toggle 2: Turning off visual search history

This setting caught me by surprise. It came in as Google Lens, and Circle to Search became widely used.

When you use Lens to identify a flower, translate a menu, or scan a barcode, you’re basically taking a photo.

If this sub-setting is on, Google saves the image to your history by default. Visual search feels way more personal than text.

When I take a picture of a menu at a restaurant, I might accidentally include the face of the person I’m with, a prescription bottle on the table, or the credit card in my hand.

I don’t want that kind of archive stored somewhere online. Inside Web & App Activity, I turned off Include Visual Search History.

Customizing Google Ads and limiting sensitive topics

We can’t ignore the elephant in the room, and that’s the ads you’re going to see.

Unless you have a network-level blocker like Pi-hole and a modded YouTube client, ads are part of the package.

It’s the tax we pay for free services.

Now the issue isn’t that you see ads. It’s when those ads feel psychologically harmful.

Many people ignore Google’s My Ad Center (myadcenter.google.com), but it’s one of the best tools in your privacy toolkit to protect your mental health.

It has a simple interface, and you can customize the ad topics. Go to Customize Ads > Sensitive. It’s a sobering list of human vices and vulnerabilities.

You can choose to limit ads, such as:

• Alcohol
• Gambling
• Dating
• Weight Loss
• Pregnancy & Parenting

I turned on Limit for Gambling and Weight Loss. No gambling issues here, but the flood of sports betting apps makes watching sports on YouTube a real headache.

And when it comes to Weight Loss ads, I find them downright predatory. I don’t need my phone reminding me to lose ten pounds every time I look up a cookie recipe.

Removing unused third-party permission tokens

Who hasn’t clicked Sign in with Google? Want to check a flight tracker, play a game, or read a news article behind a registration wall? It’s the quickest way in.

The problem is that we don’t usually check what permissions we’re giving, and depending on what you allow, these services can access your data.

Some may even keep these keys active forever, so they can still do things even if you’re not using them anymore.

Go to Manage your Google Account > Third-party apps & services. I removed the ones I don’t use regularly, or that looked shady.

Finding a good enough privacy state with Google

To be honest, even after all these steps, Google still knows a lot about both of us.

It knows I’m writing this on Chrome, my IP address, and that I watched a YouTube video on fixing a dishwasher last night.

You can’t beat Google unless you fully deGoogle your life. But I can’t, and that’s not even the point. Instead of giving Google a forever storage, I’ve switched to short-term memory.

It’s practical for me but hostile to long-term profiling. Google will change the settings again; it always does. New AIs and tracking methods will keep coming. But for now, enjoy your (mostly) private year.