Recently, I was fiddling with some mysterious settings on my Moto G and came across something that surprised me: an archive of all the voice commands I've ever given to my phone.
What now appears? Whenever you say something to the Google Now search field, Android saves a copy of what you said in your Voice & Audio history. This history can go back months or even years and includes a transcript of what you said, plus a play button so you can relive the moment. Also read: Android apps interact with thousands of ad websites.
But that is not everything. Your Android device — and all of your Google accounts, mobile or not — can also store a history of your clicks and web searches, as well as what you've searched for on YouTube and what you've watched. Android can also save a map of where you have been with your phone or tablet, even when the handset is not in use.
Creepy? Well, that depends on how paranoid you are. According to Google, saving your activity on Android is the best way to generate search results that appear to be reading your mind. The company says this will improve the quality of its speech recognition, recommend restaurants in the area where you might want to eat, and so on. Google swears that you are the only one who has access to your Android history.
You can also disable your history - or at least look at what's being saved. Here we discuss four ways your Android device is watching you.
Your internet history
Whenever you search the web with Chrome on your Android device — or with Google on a desktop browser — Google keeps track of what you've searched for and what search results you've clicked on.
In addition to making your search results more relevant, your web history can be a useful, fascinating, and/or creepy way to keep track of what you've searched for over the past few days, weeks, months, and even years.
Open Applications (usually by pressing a button in the dock at the bottom of your Android device's home screen), press the Google Settingsicon and choose Account History > Web & App Activity > Manage History. Voilà, here's your full Google history in all its glory.
You can search your web history using the Searchfield at the top of the page or you can delete individual items by checking the corresponding boxes and clicking the Remove Items to click.
To delete a large piece of your web history - or all - press Settings under the Search field, then press Remove Items and choose how much you want to delete: everything from the past hour, a day, a week, a month or really everything.
You can also pause your entire Google history by unchecking the large setting on to remove, at the top of the Web & App Activity-screen. Then Google will no longer save your searches and browsing behavior until you turn the feature back on. But remember that your previously saved activities will remain on the web until you manually delete them yourself.
You can also pause your web history on a particular device, such as your Android phone. To do this, go to the Web & App Activity-screen. Press Data from this device and uncheck on for this setting.
Note: Another simple but temporary way to prevent Android from saving your searches is to enable Chrome's private mode.
Your Voice Commands
Your Android device keeps track of all your spoken commands - everything from "What's the weather today?" to "Remind me to buy milk at the store".
To see - and hear - a history of your voice commands, you must be in the Google Settingsapp to it Account Historyscreen. Then press Voice & Audio Activity and Manage History.
Scroll down for a huge list of all the voice commands you've ever uttered. To listen to a command, you can press the playbutton. Interesting - and a bit strange.
Like your web history, you can pause your voice command history (permanently or not) and you can delete some (or all of) your saved voice activity.
Press on the Settingsbutton (the gear icon) and then Remove Items. You get the same choices as with your web history: you can delete the last hour, a day, a week, a month or all.
To pause your voice command history, go back to the Voice & Audio Activityscreen and uncheck on at the top of the screen.
Keep in mind, though, that this may make Android less adept at deciphering your voice commands.
