You have a range of controls to manage your privacy across Google’s services. To find answers to many common questions about privacy and your data in Google’s products and services, select an option below or visit our Privacy Policy.
There are also specialized resources and tools to help you with:
Get help with a Google product
Visit our help center and support forums.
Google Account recovery & suspected compromised accounts
If you're having problems with a personal account:
- Learn how to recover your Google Account or Gmail.
- Follow these steps to recover your account.
- If you still can't recover your account, find the Product Forum for the product you're using and create a post with your question.
If you're using a Google product with a work or school account, find help for Google Workspace.
If you think a crime has been committed
If you think a crime has been committed, you may wish to contact law enforcement.
If you're getting someone else's email
Report content or information you would like removed from a Google product or service
Learn how to remove potentially illegal or unauthorized content on Google.
Google provides specific streamlined processes to remove content that can contain users' personal information from Google services.
This page will help you get to the right place to report content that you would like removed from Google's services under applicable laws.
If your request relates to Youtube, learn more about YouTube’s Privacy Guidelines.Your account controls
Learn about downloading your data, or visit the Takeout Tool to download your data from Google products and services.
You can also use our tools to access and review your data or delete your data.
Submit a data access request
If the info you are looking for is not available via the tools mentioned above, submit a data access request and specify:
- The categories of personal info you're seeking;
- The products or services to which the data relates;
- Any approximate dates when you think the data may have been collected by Google.
You’ll need to sign in to your Google Account to complete the form.
Important: You can also call our toll-free number, 855-548-2777. Our representatives can answer many of your questions and help you fill out the form to ensure we are providing information to the account owner.
When you’re signed in to a Google Account, you can always review and update info by visiting the Google services you use. For example, Photos and Drive are both designed to help you manage specific types of content you’ve saved with Google.
We also built a place for you to review and control info saved in your Google Account. These tools include:
- My Activity allows you to review and control data that’s created when you use Google services, like searches you’ve done or your visits to Google Play.
- Google Dashboard allows you to manage info associated with specific products.
- Personal Info allows you to manage your contact info, such as your name, email, and phone number.
- Data & Personalization settings page allows you to personalize your data, such as Activity & Timeline, things you create and to or select general preferences for the web.
- You can also learn about changing your Google Account picture, name & other info.
When you’re signed out, you can manage info associated with your browser or device, including:
- Signed-out search personalization: Choose whether your search activity is used to offer you more relevant results and recommendations.
- YouTube settings: Pause and delete your YouTube Search History and your YouTube Watch History.
- Ad Settings: Manage your preferences about the ads shown to you on Google and on sites and apps that partner with Google to show ads.
Delete your activity
You can delete activity, including your Location History. You can also choose to have this info deleted automatically after a set period of time.
Learn more about how to see, control and delete the info in your Google Account.
Delete a product or service
Delete your Google Account
You can delete your Google Account at any time. If you change your mind or accidentally delete your account, you might be able to get it back. Learn how to recover your account.
Once your account is deleted, all your data and account content is removed from our systems after a certain amount of time. Our policy describes why we hold on to different types of data for different periods of time. Once you delete your Google Account, you’ll no longer be able to use the following:
- Services that require you to sign in, like Gmail, Drive, and Calendar;
- Data associated with your account, including emails, photos, and records of transactions;
- Subscriptions on YouTube;
- Content you purchased on Google Play, like movies, games, or music;
- Info you've saved in Chrome;
- Your Gmail username. Once it’s deleted, you can't use it again later, and you can't create a new Google Account with the same username.
In addition to these tools, we also offer specific deletion controls in our products, like Photos.
Certain laws can grant you the right to request access to your personal information. We believe this is best achieved by putting you in control of your data. That’s why we have created user-friendly tools to make it easier for people to access and review their data, download and move it to another service, or delete it entirely.
To protect our users, we have implemented advanced security infrastructure to ensure that we only allow authorized individuals to access personal information relating to them.
Our user-facing tools are designed to provide you with your personal information in a concise, transparent, intelligible, and easily accessible form. For example:
- Activity Controls allow you to review and manage what types of activity you would like saved to your Google Account. If you have Web & App Activity turned on, your searches and activity from other Google services are saved in your Google Account, so you can get more personalized experiences like faster searches and more helpful app and content recommendations.
- You can also allow Web & App Activity to save to your Google Account information about your activity on other sites, apps, and devices that use Google services, such as apps that you install and use on Android. You can access and manage your Web & App Activity data in the intuitive Web & App activity user interface.
-
You can also download data through Google’s download your data tool. This tool will allow you to tailor what data you want to access, how frequently you want the data provided, and to where the data should be sent.
While these tools are the most effective way for you to control how Google’s core services process your data, you can also submit requests through the data access form that is available through the Privacy Help Center.
Below, you can find more information about how to use each of these options available to you.
How can I access my data?- My Activity. You can use this setting to review and control data that’s saved to your Google Account when you’re signed in and using Google services, like searches you’ve done or your visits to Google Play.
- For example, if you want to find out that website you found on Google Search last week, you can use the simple search functionality. You can:
- Search by keywords by typing into the search box terms the terms you want to search;
- Filter by date and product by simply clicking the “filter by date & product” button and inputting the dates and product you are interested in; or
- Browse all your saved activity.
- For example, if you want to find out that website you found on Google Search last week, you can use the simple search functionality. You can:
- You can also use the specific Web & App Activity, Location History, or YouTube History interfaces if to search in those spaces or you want to access the granular controls available for those services.
- Web & App Activity. To review and manage your activity on Google sites and apps, including associated info like location, that is used to give you faster searches, better recommendations, and more personalized experiences in Maps, Search, and other Google services.
- Location History. To review and manage information about where you go with your devices, even when you aren't using a specific Google service, which information is used to give you personalized maps, recommendations based on places you've visited, and more.
- YouTube History. To review and manage the YouTube videos you watch and the things you search for on YouTube which is used to give you better recommendations, help remind you where you left off, and more.
- My Ad Center. You can see and manage your preferences about the ads shown to you on Google and on sites and apps that partner with Google to show ads. You can modify your interests, choose whether your personal information is used to make ads more relevant to you, and turn on or off certain advertising services.
- Customise Ads. Choose topics and brands you want to see more or fewer ads about.
- Manage Privacy. You can tailor and turn off info you don't want used to personalize your ads.
- The My Ad Center preferences page in My Activity also allows you to see and manage My Ad Center preferences, such as ads you’ve liked or blocked.
- Google Workspace search history. When you use Google Workspace products like Gmail and Google Drive, you can choose for Google to store the searches you make so you can review and manage them.
- Purchases and reservations. Manage your purchases and reservations made using Search, Maps, and the Assistant.
- Google Dashboard allows you to manage information associated with specific products.
Using Google Takeout
To use Google Takeout, follow these simple steps. For more information see this Help Center.
- Access the Takeout tool from one of the many surfaces it is linked, such as the Privacy Help Center. You will need to be signed into the Google account you are trying to access to download data related to that Google account.
- You can choose to tailor what services you want data from by navigating to a specific Google service you want to obtain your personal information from.
- Select the Google service you are interested in by clicking the tickbox.
- If you only want to download some of your data from a product, you may have the option to select a button like the circled All data included
. Then, you can uncheck the box next to data you don’t want to include.
- You would then click Next Step.
- In this final step you can, among other things, select how frequently you want this data exported and the destination for export. For example, you can automatically create an archive of your selected data every 2 months for one year. The first archive will be created immediately.
- Once the export is ready you will receive an email with a link to where you can access the requested information. Depending on the amount of information in your account, this process could take different times. Most people get the link to their archive the same day that they request it.
Examples of available information
Google Account - includes data about your account registration and account activity, such as:
- Account registration information such as creation date, terms of service IP address, terms of service language, account recovery information such as recovery email, recovery sms and alternate email addresses.
- IP activity such as IP address, timestamp, browser information, operating system details, and the device that is being used to access the website.
Google Play Store - data about your Google Play Store activity, such as:
- Installs - List of your Google Play app installs and associated data such as timestamp, update time, device carrier details, model details, manufacturer details.
- Redemption history - List of your Google Play promo redemptions and associated data.
- Purchase history - List of your Google Play purchases and associated data such as user language, user code, timestamp.
- Order history - Detailed purchase data regarding your Google Play orders and associated data such as location data including IP address.
- Devices - data about your devices that have accessed the Google Play Store such as location data.
- Play settings - Settings for your Google Play apps and associated data.
Access Log Activity - logs of your account activity, such as:
- Activity IP logs: a list of Google services accessed by your devices (e.g. every time your phone synchronizes with your Gmail), including timestamps, IP addresses, and browser details;
- Device logs: a list of devices (e.g. Nest, Pixel, iPhone), which have accessed your Google account in the past 30 days.
- When you fill in the data access form, you will be asked to provide certain information to help direct your request:
- Your email address – this allows us to verify your identity (learn more in our FAQ);
- Your country of residence – this is to help us identify the legal rights that govern your request;
- The product (or products) you are inquiring about – this helps us to find what data you are requesting, and to identify any tools available for you to access that data directly (see above); and
- Information about what information you are seeking – this is important for us to be able to know the scope of your request, and our data access form allows you to be as broad or specific as you want. The specificity of your request will affect the response you receive. For example:
- You can ask for all of the data Google processes relating to you (i.e., ‘Any data’ or ‘All data’). Because this is a very broad request, the initial response you get will identify online tools where you can access your data, and our specialist privacy team may ask you to provide more clarity to help them provide a more helpful response.
- If you can specify particular data points that you want, or specific categories of data, such as call recordings, chat transcripts, details of logins etc. it may allow your request to be processed more efficiently.
- You might find it helpful to refer to the information we publish about how we process data through the products you're interested in, typically the Google Privacy Policy, or the Google Cloud Privacy Notice if you're using our enterprise Cloud products. If the data requested is not available through the online tools, our specialist privacy team will search for the data.
- Upon receipt of your request submitted via the data access form your request will be processed as follows:
- The specialist privacy operations team will confirm that the individual making the request is the same individual to whom the data relates. For example, if you submit a request from one Google account asking for information about another Google account, we would ask that you submit your request from the relevant Google account.
- Once the specialist privacy team confirms that you are the individual to whom the requested data relates, they will assess the detail of your request and determine how to respond. For example:
- if the complexity of the request requires further time to respond, they will inform you of that extended time period.
- if your request is unclear or relates to a large quantity of information they will ask that you clarify your request by specifying the information or processing activities to which the request relates.
- If you can clarify the scope of the request, such as by identifying specific categories of data or services to which your request relates, it will help our specialist privacy team provide a more tailored response. This may mean detailing specific user facing tools that provide you with access to the relevant data in the most concise and intelligible format with instructions on how to utilise those tools.
- if the requested data is not available in the user -facing tools they will conduct searches to identify in scope data for production.
- Once relevant, in scope data is identified by the specialist privacy operations team they will compile it, applying exemptions as appropriate (e.g. where disclosure of such data could adversely affect the rights and interests of third parties).
- Once the in scope documents have been prepared the data will be provided to you through a relevant production avenue such as a specialist platform that you can use to access data that has been manually compiled by the relevant teams.
- If, after a diligent search of our systems, no data is identified in response to your request, you will be informed that no responsive data was identified.
Please note that there is certain data that we will not be able to provide in response to a request.
For more information on submitting access requests see the FAQ.
FAQs
Verifying the identity of the individual making a request- that is associated with a Google Account, that individual will need to submit their request from the authenticated email address associated with that Google Account to access that data. If they submit their request from another email address that is not associated with the Google Account and we cannot verify that the requested data relates to them they will not obtain access to information associated with that Google Account.
- that is processed in a manner that does not identify the individual, such information cannot generally be verified as relating to the person making the request. This could apply to information that is processed without being associated to a particular individual. For example, data processed in the context of Google’s SafesSites is associated with a Chrome wide API key which could not be used to authenticate individual users. As such SafeSites data would not be provided in response to an access request.
Why does Google ask me to log into my Google account to access Google account data?
There are several good reasons why we ask a user to log into the Google account they are seeking information about. By doing so, we can help to protect user privacy, comply with regulations, and prevent fraud.
- To protect user privacy. By confirming the identity of the user, we can be sure that we are only sharing data with the person who is authorized to receive it. This helps to protect user privacy and prevent unauthorized access to personal information.
- To comply with regulations. Many laws and regulations require organizations to take steps to protect the privacy of their users. One of these steps is to confirm that an individual requesting access to information is the individual to whom the information relates. This helps organizations to comply with these laws and regulations and protect their users' privacy.
- To prevent abuse. When we share data with someone, we are essentially trusting them with that data. By confirming the user is entitled to the information that they have requested we protect our users' interests.
Can I use other information related to or from a Google account to access data associated with that Google account?
A user’s knowledge or possession of information (e.g. forwarded emails, details of IP addresses from which an account was accessed or cookie IDs), taken alone, is generally insufficient to verify that the user making a request is the individual to whom such data relates.
For example, emails, IP addresses or device information could be obtained by third parties through various means, such as a spouse/partner that shares a device or gains access to an account of their partner forwarding emails to themselves which they subsequently submit in order to hijack an account. Similarly, third parties could alter the contents of automated emails so that they appear to relate to a different account. Similarly, IP addresses and cookie ID, taken alone, are generally inadequate for verification purposes for many reasons, including because they can be shared by a number of different people at the same time.
As Google provides varied services that can be used in many ways in multiple combinations, with a multitude of settings, the actual information collected in relation to each individual is highly dependent on if and how an individual uses any of the services. This means that information processed about your use of Google services may differ from another user’s use of Google services.
We provide you with flexible and powerful tools to access and control data processed about you which we detail here. Those tools will provide you with access to concise, transparent, intelligible and easily accessible information about your data.
So when we receive a request we will often point users to the appropriate user facing tools that can be used to access the requested information.
Your privacy & security controls
You have controls to manage your privacy across our services. You can use Privacy Checkup to review and adjust important privacy settings like those below. In addition to these tools, we also offer specific privacy settings in our products.
- Activity Controls
- Decide what types of activity you’d like saved in your account. For example, you can turn on Location History if you want traffic predictions for your daily commute, or you can save your YouTube Watch History to get better video suggestions.
- Ad Settings
- Manage your preferences about the ads shown to you on Google and on sites and apps that partner with Google to show ads. You can modify your interests, choose whether your personal info is used to make ads more relevant to you, and turn on or off certain advertising services.
- About You
- Control what others see about you across Google services.
To help you safely share your data, Google lets you give third-party sites and apps access to different parts of your account.
- Use Security Checkup to help make sure your account is safe and to strengthen your online security.
- Learn more about how to make your account more secure.
What info we collect & how we use it
We're committed to being clear about what info we collect and how we use it. You can find details of our commitments in our Privacy Policy. You'll also get explanations of the types of info we collect, how it's collected, why we collect it, how it's used, and when it's shared. You can also visit our Safety Center to learn about Google’s privacy and security principles.
Where your data is stored
To make sure our services are reliable, we maintain servers around the world. This means your info may be processed on servers outside of the country where you live. Regardless of where your info is processed, Google applies the same level of protection to your data.
Data privacy questions
To address user privacy inquiries for its products, Google has a designated team. If you don't find an answer to your privacy questions in the Privacy Help Center, you can call our toll-free number 855-548-2777 or fill out this web-form. If you have a privacy question about your Google Workspace account, you can contact your Account Administrator. If you're an Administrator, please reach out to Google Workspace support.
For more information on Google's privacy practices, go to our Privacy Policy.
There are also specialized resources and tools to help you with:
Enterprise customer requests & resources
If you use a consumer version of Gmail, Drive, or other Google product, the Google Terms of Service and Privacy Policy apply to you.
Google doesn’t offer a Data Processing Agreement for the consumer versions of Gmail or Drive. Google does not act as a data processor for the consumer version of these services. If you have specific privacy concerns, data protection obligations, or compliance needs, consult with your legal counsel.
If your organization uses Google Workspace, Google Workspace for Education, or Google Cloud Platform services, the Cloud Data Processing Addendum (CDPA) may apply to you. If your agreement does not already incorporate the CDPA (or its predecessor, the Data Processing Amendment or Data Processing and Security Terms, as applicable), you can accept the CDPA in the Admin Console by following the instructions here for Google Workspace and Google Workspace for Education, and here for Google Cloud Platform. However, please note that if your organization purchases Google Cloud Platform from a reseller, the CDPA will not apply to you, because you will enter data processing terms with your reseller instead. Please contact your reseller if you have questions about those terms.
In addition, the Google Cloud Privacy Notice describes how we collect and process personal information (excluding our customer’s data) in relation to those services.
Google makes appropriate data processing terms available for certain products where it acts as a data processor, including those listed below.
- Analytics
- Google Ads, for Customer Match and Store Sales Direct
- Google Cloud Platform
- Google Workspace and Google Workspace for Education
- Google Tag Manager
- Firebase
You can also find info on how Google helps Google Ads advertisers comply with GDPR. For other features related to Ads, view the Google controller terms.
You can find more info about the products and data processing terms at privacy.google.com/businesses/compliance.
Avoid & report scams
People sometimes use the Google brand to scam and defraud people. Learn more how to avoid scams and where to report them.
If you find suspicious activity on your account, learn how to help secure your account. Use Google's Security Checkup to check your account security settings.