Google Chrome: Clear History and Delete Your Browsing Data

Contributor Icon Contributed by shamanstears Date Icon September 3, 2008  
Tag Icon Tagged: Google

If the computer you are using is accessed by people other than you, you probably do not want to disclose your browsing habits. By emptying your cache, deleting cookies, and clearing history, you can cover your tracks. Chrome makes this easy.


1. Open Google Chrome.

2. Click the wrench icon in the upper-right corner of the toolbar and select Clear browsing data.

3. Use the checkboxes to select the data you wish to clear out. Choices are: Clear browsing history, Clear download history, Empty the cache, Delete cookies and Clear saved passwords. By using the Clear data from this period dropdown, you can select the period for which you want the data cleared. Choices are: Last day, Last week, Last 4 weeks, or Everything.

4. Click the Clear Browsing Data button.

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  • ONIL
    ICON IS NOT WORKING, THEN WHAT?
  • nobody
    just delete the history if icon doesnt work
  • *
    I wish that you could setup Chrome to do this automatically.
  • agrepina
    can i please quit Google chrome
  • meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
    G8!!!!!!!! Thx
  • chenna
    Workaround : Go to tool ( wrench) , import bookmarks @settings.
    choose firefox from there( you need to have the firefox installed already with setting of automatically remove the history and other stuff option enabled ) and apply .

    now chrome will use Firefox settings

    Hope this helps.
  • chenna
    correction to earlier comment.
    The workaround is not working.
  • abelshewit
    how do you put toolbars in google chrome? because when i tryed non of them worked.
  • suspicious
    I only want to delete specific sites. not all day. This is important, and I don't eant chromeif I can't do this
  • Ano
    Thanks!
  • john
    its quite annoying, but keep typed pages in the address bar, as you type first letters it shown that certain page, even after you clear so called history! whats now!
  • Mobwai
    Maybe that's easy, but it's not obvious enough for the average user who rarely bothers to manually clear their private data. The fact that you had to post an explanation of how to do this is proof that it's not clear enough. A browser with really good security/privacy settings would be able to clear things automatically when the browser closes, and upon first install, that feature would be set to clear everything - the user would have to decide what they want to keep, not what they want to get rid of. So far there's no browser quite that solid, but Firefox has add-ons that put it ahead of the competition. On the other hand, chrome is a Google product, and clearing your cookies means less revenue for Google's ad network, so I don't expect that Chrome will ever have truly adequate privacy settings.
  • ChromeConvert
    They have Incognito mode, it doesn't save websites to your history, when you close the window all of those cookies get deleted, and when you download something, it doesn't save a record of it, so, after you close it, its like it never existed.
  • dlm
    ....except that if you bookmark it it shows up in the recent bookmarks column on the homepage. To clear these, do this:
    http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Chrome/th...
  • G.HOPLEY
    How to delete only my browsing history on google chrome each day as I have to share the computer.. This was easy on old google as you just clicked on the items and then pressed delete.
  • Deana
    Right on the bottom under all the windows it says history.......scroll all the way down.
  • Deepak
    thanks for helping me
  • curious george
    im looking to permanently dis-remember my browsing history, except for cookies, so i dont always have to clear it, any tips on how i can accompish this?
  • simran
    i am very thankful to the owner of this page for helping me
  • angelrapallo
    this feature of chrome does not work, next time you open the same crap still there
    they did something in this last release and screwed it up..
    they are starting to look like Microsoft, i am very sad i thought they would be diffrent
    now google is the same garbage like Microsoft, bad software, bugs, all about money
  • mhpuma
    im trying to delet google CHROME FROM MY COMPUTER
  • Aditi
    Thanx a ton!! Ur advice helped.. was given in a very lucid style and illustrated nicely..

    Had wanted to clear the history for ages..

    Thanx again!!!
  • srimaha
    i follow ur instructions still i am unable to clear history in google chrome.so plz give any other alternative.plzzz
  • Ramji
    it is good and better than other
  • Billy
    Clearing browsing data in Google Chrome does NOT work!

    I just made a comment to a blog and no matter what I do, I cannot see my comment. I have cleared the browsing cache, even restarted the browser and still it wont show a fresh page. Even a hard refresh does not work!

    I open the same page in Firefox and there is my comment for all the World to see.

    Chrome sucks big time!!!!
  • Name
    Was the comment pending approval by the blog owner, maybe?
  • saolang
    thanks so much!
  • alekztrgsysyy
    Hey there! I can´t do that. It doesn´t go away. The Search data is from my Internet explorer i think.... Can you help me? (ljung_alexander@hotmail.com)
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