Here’s how you can stop Google from tracking your location

• Google tracks your approximate location throughout the day.
• The company claims that it helps them offer you a personalized experience.
• However, you can stop this by following the steps given below.

Whenever you use a Google application on your devices, it stores the location and data history which it then claims to use for offering personalised results. However, everyone may not be comfortable with being tracked by Google and that’s why people tend to turn off the settings that may track them. Even then, Google still collects some relevant data such as the approximate location when you open the Google Maps app or use Google search.

So if you are somebody who does not want to share any tracking details with Google, you should follow the steps given below. However, you should note that this comes at the cost of losing out on a personalized experience that Google offers when you switch on the location and other relevant information.

Here’s how to turn off Google tracking completely.

How to turn off Google's location tracking

If you do not want Google to log your location history, here’s what you can do.

• Launch a browser on your computer or mobile phone and open google.com.
• Now, log into your Google account by tapping on the icon at the top right corner of the screen.
• Now, click or tap on your user icon in the top right corner and select “Manage your Google account”.
• Select “Privacy & personalization” and then tap “Things you've done and places you've been”.
• Now, tap on “Location history” inside the History settings box which will open up the Activity Controls.
• Just under the Location History, press “Turn off”.
• This will open a pop-up window, where you have to scroll to the bottom and press “Pause”.

This will prevent Google from storing your location details in the future, even if it is only approximate, when you use Google’s applications. However, it does not delete the history of locations and if you wish to delete all location history, you should follow the step below.

How to delete location history

• Launch a browser on your computer or mobile phone and open google.com.
• Now, log into your Google account by tapping on the icon at the top right corner of the screen.
• Now, click or tap on your user icon in the top right corner and select “Manage your Google account”.
• Select “Privacy & personalization” and then tap “Things you've done and places you've been”.
• Now, tap on “Location history” inside the History settings box which will open up the Activity Controls.
• Now tap “Manage History” at the bottom of the page. This will open up a map with a timeline showing all the places you have been to and at what time.
• If you wish to delete your location for a certain date, you should select the date in the timeline. It will display all the locations for the date. Now tap on the delete (trash) button. In the pop-up window, tap “Delete day”.
• If you wish to delete all the location history at once, then you should tap on the trash icon at the bottom right corner of the map which will open a pop-up window.
• Now tap on “I understand and want to delete all Location History” and select Delete location history.

These two methods will prevent Google from storing your location and delete your location history. However, you will not be able to receive advertisements based on your location or view businesses near you.

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