That question could mean a couple of things: the history of web sites you’ve visited, or perhaps the responses that auto-fill shows you as you type in your next Google search. The “trick” is that neither has anything to do with Google at all. But both have everything to do with your browser.
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If you just want to delete the list of sites you’ve visited, whether you found them via Google or got to them some other way, you need to clear your browser’s history and cache. In Internet Explorer:
- Click on the Tools menu
- Click on Internet Options…
- Click on the General tab, if it’s not already showing
- In the Temporary Internet files section, click on Delete Files…
- Make sure Delete all offline content is checked
- Press OK
- In the History section, click on Clear History, and answer Yes to the confirmation.
- OK your way back out.
If what concerns you is the list of previous search terms that start to show as you type in a new search term for Google, that’s just your browser’s AutoComplete feature at work. It works on most web forms, and the Google search page is just one of those forms. To delete the contents of the AutoComplete list in Internet Explorer:
- Click on the Tools menu
- Click on Internet Options…
- Click on the Content tab
- In the Personal information section, click on the AutoComplete button
- Click on the Clear Forms button, and answer Yes to the resulting confirmation
Your Google AutoComplete history, as well as the AutoComplete history for any other web forms is now erased.
how do i delete items i have been to on google? i tried going in to Tools – Internet options – delete files – delete all the offline content. but this doesnt seems to be working. cud u plz tell me another way of deleting these items.
shara
Read the rest of the article. You also need to do the AutoComplete clear.
Leo,
I tried clearing the history in Google and Yahoo using your instructions. It worked for Google although the history in Yahoo remains. Any suggestions?? Also, what reccomendations do you have for clearing temp files and plug ins.
Thank You,
J
I’m not sure about Yahoo. I would have expected that their search is also just an HTML form and would have been clean up by the instructions above. Are you using any kind of Yahoo add-in? Are we talking about plain old Yahoo search?
The MS Anti-Spyware program has a good cleaner for many things, I would also look at that: http://ask-leo.com/recommendation_microsoft_antispyware.html
In order to erase history in google tool bar (or any other search tool bar) in Safari, under Safari, go to Preferences > click on AutoFill tab > look down to see if u have the box next to Other forms checked, if so click on the edit button next to Other forms > then click Remove All….and that should do it!
If are using Netscape 8, at the top part of the Netscape browser
window there should a Location bar (also called address field). Type
about:config into the Location bar (and press Enter). Now you should
see a text field (also called a text box) right to text “Filter:”.
Type browser.formfill.enable to the text field. Now you should see
under the text field “browser.formfill.enable”. Double-click it to
change it from value true to false.
I even design games but when i needed to delete my google auto-complete i really didnt know what to do. My boss was coming round for inspection to make sure we dont play games (which i do) so i quickly searched google and found this. Thanks you just saved me from losin my job :)
Is there a way to delete search itmes on google?
In other words, if I type in my name and newspaper articles come up on me. I don’t want them to.
As far as I know, only if you are the owner of the website that contains the newspaper articles.
Is there a way to delete search itmes on google?
In other words, if I type in my name and newspaper articles come up on me. i don’t want anybody to see that article. how can i delete it?
That’s this article: http://ask-leo.com/how_do_i_remove_myself_from_the_search_engines.html
In short: no, not really.
People are asking about Mozilla Firefox deletion. I figured it out. Go to tools then options (at the bottem). Click on options and a thing will come up. On the side bar of the pop-up thing, click privacy. The there is a link that says saved imformation or something along those general lines. Click that and it will pop-up with a thing that has a box that says something like: “Save information from searches, etc., etc.” Unmark the box and click okay at the bottem. Not clear which is next to it. This should work.
Mac People….Go to google.com (for example) .. in the search area click on it and scroll down to highlight a previous search but dont click on it, then click shift and delete. You can delete them one by one.
just DL the Google toolbar and when you go to the scrolldown page just go all the way to the bottom and select “Clear search history”.
unfortunately this doesn’t work with addresses entered into the Google Maps “Get Directions” text boxes. If you clear the web form and log out then your previsouly searched for addresses don’t show in when you begin typing in a new address for directions.
However, if you log back into your Google account that history does show up and as soon as you start to type in a new address for directions any address you have searched for previously will show up.
how do i delete google msg using google search
Dear
sirs
my Google bar history is very long so i can not see the clear the hostiry opection how can i delete pls help me
Youtube has started giving search suggestions again. How do I stop it without having to sign up for an account? I’m using Firefox. I remember stopping it before, I think using a filter in adblockplus, but that’s just reset for some reason and I’ve lost all my custom filters.
Never mind, I found the answer:
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-to-disable-google-suggest.html
Worked perfectly (I added all three filters).
How do I delete SOME SELECTED items only?? Parts of my “history” are useful, to look through and remind myself how I got X or Y. Much is useless. I want to delete it. Can’t see how, and Google’s own advice tells me, after a few manoeuvres, to click on a button called “delete items”–which has been rendered inoperative!!
Leo,
Your link is the fifth of sixth site I’ve come across and the info, while a little bit different, still isn’t doing the job for me.
What I want to do is delete “all” the history in the Google drop down window. The “clean google search history” command in “their” dropdown window is not working when you click on it. How can I clean everything out of this window as I’ve done in the IE drop down history? Or is that possible. Everybody is saying the same thing and it’s still not working.
Please help,
Dennis
I cannot delete cached items from my google search pages.
I have tried clearing browser history, but cached pages keep showing up.
i have tryed to delete google drop down but the list is to long so i have lost the delete history down the bottom,i have to longer list some how i cant get to the bottom or see delete histoy.
I’m trying to delite Google drop downs but list is too long, how do I reach delite history
I still cannot clear Google History please help. I have followed the instruction, but it still does not work
Well you could try hiding the taskbar, then the “delete histiry” icon will be visible (accessible).
hi there i was tryna find a way to clear my history when the drop down box displayed too much that i couldnt get to the “delete history” thing so what i did was typed in a letter then it will show clear history and then click on that and your done.
Leo, great post!
Can you confirm that even if something is not searched specifically that it can actually get indexed. I have a client who have some negative items associated with their name. When you type in their name the negative items begin to appear in a google tool bar because after their name, search returns the negative items as the next result. Thus the google task bar indexes the first few results. Can you confirm this to be true?
when the drop down box displayed too much that i couldnt get to the “delete history” thing so what i did was typed in a letter then it will show clear history and then click on that and your done.
Also having problems deleting google history am I missing some thing? would have thought that this would be simple
please can I know how to delete my information on google…
18-Oct-2011
I’m using IE 8, and there is a bar at the top of the window, where I can click to see recent pages visited, under titles of “Historial” and “Favoritos”. If I click the title, it shows me up to the last 20. If I eliminate one of them, I am left with 19. BUT there are some that will NOT delete. Perhaps a virus put them there. No matter what I do, they stay in the list, and I want them to disappear. Any hints, Leo? Thanks.
@Gerard
This article was written for IE7 but the process is very similar for IE8. Follow the instructions in the article until you get to the screen which says Delete Browsing History. In IE8 you’ll get a screen with similar options except it will have check boxes instead of buttons. If you want to clear the history of the sites you’ve visited, make sure the History box is checked. You can check or uncheck any other boxes depending on what you want to do with that saved data.
How do I clear my search history in IE 7?