What Data Are You Actually Storing on Google?
What does Google actually know about you? It turns out that it is not that hard to view, download, and analyze much of the data that Google has on you, and make changes to what is being tracked.
To begin, visit the Google account dashboard at https://myaccount.google.com/dashboard
Once logged in, you are presented with a number of cards, each representing a Google service that you may have data on.
Each card presents a count or piece of information about the service and the data you are storing on it. Expanding the card will show more information about what you are storing there. There is a link at the bottom of each expanded card to go to that service directly, where you can view, modify or delete your information from that service.
It is well worth working through these cards one by one, deleting old data you don’t need, and maybe recovering some memories by finding files or photos you’ve forgotten about on a service you don’t use anymore.
For maximum privacy, scroll down to the “Your activity data” section and set all the services to “paused”.
