How to delete Google Assistant recordings, now that Gemini is taking over

The Morse teamPublished October 29, 202611 min read

To delete Google Assistant recordings, open myactivity.google.com/product/assistant signed in to the account your phone or speaker uses, find the items with an audio icon, and choose More, then Delete on each. To clear everything, choose Delete, then All time, which removes all of your Web & App Activity, not only the recordings. Then uncheck Include voice and audio activity so new audio isn't saved. If your Nest speaker has moved to Gemini for Home, or your phone to Gemini, the newer recordings sit in a different history, under a different setting, and the sections below show how to clear those too.

We read Google's own pages on October 29, 2026: Google Search Help on audio recordings and Web & App Activity, Google Assistant Help and Google Account Help on deleting activity, Google Home and Nest Help on Assistant privacy, activity controls, Gemini for Home activity, and the Nest privacy FAQ, the Google Safety Center's Assistant page, the Gemini Apps Privacy Hub (last updated October 26, 2026), and Google's retention policy. For the $68 million settlement in In re Google Assistant Privacy Litigation, we read the court's final approval order and the settlement agreement on the settlement website. Google deserves credit for one thing. Its audio setting is off unless you turn it on, and its help page lists what the setting doesn't cover.

Where are your Google voice recordings now?

In up to three places, depending on which device you spoke to and whether it has moved to Gemini. Each has its own page, defaults, and delete button.

Sources, read October 29, 2026: Google's pages on audio recordings, Assistant privacy, Gemini for Home activity, the Nest privacy FAQ, Gemini Apps activity, and the Gemini Apps Privacy Hub.

Clearing one history leaves the other two alone. The Privacy Hub says deleting Gemini Apps activity "doesn't delete data in other Google services," and that the phone's audio setting is separate from the Gemini for Home one.

How do you delete Google Assistant recordings in My Activity?

From your Google Account. Google Search Help gives this path on a computer (Google):

1. Go to your Google Account and click Data & privacy.
2. Under "History settings," click Web & App Activity, then Manage activity. Items with an audio icon include a recording.
3. Next to an item, click More, then Delete.

To clear everything, click Delete above your activity, then All time. Google warns that this "will delete all of your Web & App Activity, not just items that include a recording." To remove only Assistant's share, Google Account Help says to filter My Activity by product, select Assistant, and click Delete, then Delete Results (Google Account Help). Assistant Help's own route starts on the Assistant activity page: on the "Google Assistant" banner, choose More, Delete activity by, then All time. Google says that "can take a day" to reach your other devices (Google Assistant Help).

You can also say it. Assistant Help lists "Hey Google, delete my last conversation," "Hey Google, delete today's activity," "Hey Google, delete this week's activity," and "Hey Google, that wasn't for you" for the last thing you said.

To keep less in future, open Manage activity, choose More, then Keep activity for, and pick a period. That timer covers all of your Web & App Activity, and Google says it "may delete your audio recordings from Google servers sooner than the timeframe you choose" once it no longer needs them to improve its audio recognition.

How do you turn off Google Assistant recording?

Uncheck one box. In your Google Account, click Data & privacy, then Web & App Activity, and uncheck Include voice and audio activity (Google). Google says the box applies "anywhere you're signed in to Assistant," including the Assistant app and a Google Home smart speaker. The same page sets three limits:

• "If you turn this voice and audio activity setting off, previously saved audio is not deleted." Delete it separately.
• Google "will continue to process your audio to respond to you."
• The box doesn't cover audio that Google Voice and YouTube save, or Voice Match audio stored on your device.

On a shared speaker, Guest Mode is the quicker switch. Say "Hey Google, turn on Guest Mode," and Google says your Assistant interactions, "including all of your voice queries, won't be saved to your Google Account" (Google Safety Center). Anyone near the device can turn it off again, and an app Assistant talks to, like your music service, may still keep its own history.

What does Google keep when voice and audio activity is off?

The words. The audio box decides whether the recording is saved, and Web & App Activity keeps the text of what you asked either way. Google's Safety Center says that with Web & App Activity on, "your Assistant interactions, including any unintended activations, will be stored in My Activity and treated like normal activations." The same page says that to improve Assistant, "human reviewers (which include third parties) read, annotate, and process the text of your Assistant queries," after Google disassociates them from your account (Google Safety Center). Google's Nest privacy FAQ adds that "when you interact with your Assistant by voice, we may use the text of those interactions to inform your interests for ad personalization" (Google Home and Nest Help).

Turning off the audio box leaves all of that in place. To stop the text being saved, turn off Web & App Activity itself: under Data & privacy, Web & App Activity, choose Turn off, then Turn off or Turn off and delete activity (Google). With it off, Google says an accidental activation "will not be stored in My Activity" (Google Home and Nest Help). Google also says this limits personalized answers across Assistant and its other services.

Does Google listen to Assistant recordings?

Some of the ones you chose to save, by Google's own account. Google Search Help says samples of audio saved with the setting on "are analyzed by trained reviewers, who listen to, transcribe, and annotate it," and that Google disassociates the audio from your account first (Google). In July 2019, Google said one of its language reviewers "violated our data security policies by leaking confidential Dutch audio data," and that reviewers heard "around 0.2 percent of all audio snippets" (Google).

How do you delete recordings on a Nest speaker or Nest Hub?

That depends on whether the device still runs Google Assistant. Google's August 6, 2026 notice says removing Assistant from phones does "not impact your Google Nest and Google Home smart speakers, displays" (Google Assistant Community). Separately, Google announced on October 1, 2025 that Gemini "replaces the Google Assistant on your smart displays and speakers" (Google), and its Gemini for Home page, read October 29, 2026, says the new assistant works with Home and Nest speakers and displays released since 2016, and is in "Early Access" on older ones (Google Home).

Still on Assistant. Open the Google Home app, tap your profile picture or initial, then Home settings, Privacy, and Home history. Next to an item, tap Menu, Delete, then Delete (Google Home and Nest Help). Google says your Assistant activity can be reached from the Home app and at myactivity.google.com alike, so the My Activity steps above work too (Google Home and Nest Help).

On Gemini for Home. The history moves to Home History. Go to myactivity.google.com/product/home, or in the Home app tap your profile, Home settings, then under "Home features" Privacy and Home History. Choose Delete, then All time, Last hour, Last day, or Custom range (Google Home and Nest Help). Three things work differently from Assistant:

• Home History is the training switch. "When Home History is on, Google uses your activity to develop and improve its services, including training generative artificial intelligence (AI) models." It deletes after 18 months unless you choose 3 or 36.
• Turning it off leaves a day's copy. The Nest privacy FAQ says activity "is saved in your account for up to 24 hours, whether Home History is on or off" (Google Home and Nest Help).
• Audio has its own box. Improve Google services with your voice, audio, and Gemini Live recordings is off by default and needs Home History on.

Gemini for Home gains on one point. The same FAQ says "Your interactions with Gemini for Home are not used to show you ads," where Assistant's text could inform them. If an Echo shares the house, is Alexa+ private covers what Amazon keeps.

How do you delete Google Assistant recordings on Android now?

In Web & App Activity, where they always were. Google began removing Assistant from phones on September 3, 2026, but its Gemini setup page says "Google Assistant data saved in Web & App Activity will not automatically be deleted, but you can review and delete it anytime" (Google). The Privacy Hub adds that up to 90 days of saved Assistant call and message requests "may be imported" into Gemini Apps Activity, so check there as well.

What you say to Gemini now lands in Gemini Apps Activity, which keeps audio while Keep Activity is on. How to delete Gemini history has every delete step for it, and how to turn off Gemini on Android has the switches that stop Gemini answering "Hey Google."

Does deleting Google Assistant recordings remove them for good?

Eventually. Google's retention policy says deletion "generally takes around 2 months from the time of deletion," often including "up to a month-long recovery period," and that data in encrypted backups "can remain on these systems for up to 6 months" (Google). Google Account Help adds that "for limited purposes, like business or legal requirements, Google may retain certain types of data for an extended period of time" (Google Account Help).

What is the Google Assistant settlement?

A $68 million class action settlement that got final approval on October 13, 2026. Judge Beth Labson Freeman of the US District Court for the Northern District of California granted it in In re Google Assistant Privacy Litigation (Kumandan v. Google, No. 5:19-cv-04286), overruled seven objections, and awarded class counsel $22,666,666.70 in fees (final approval order).

What's alleged. The plaintiffs, who first sued in July 2019, allege that Assistant devices activated without a hot word or a button press, including on "alarm events" like breaking glass or a smoke alarm, and sent recordings "to unauthorized third-party contractors." They call these unintended activations "False Accepts." Google denies the allegations. The settlement agreement says nothing in it "constitutes an admission of liability" (settlement agreement), and the settlement website says the court "has not made any determination as to who is right or whether Google did anything wrong" (settlement website).

Who's covered. Two classes, for May 18, 2016 to March 19, 2026. The purchaser class is US users who bought a Google-made device, such as a Google Home, a Nest Hub, or a Pixel. The privacy class is Assistant users and their household members "whose communications were recorded or otherwise obtained by Google Assistant as a result of a False Accept," or disclosed "to any third-party review vendor."

What it pays. The order cites estimates of about $18 to $56 per purchaser class member and $2 to $10 per privacy class member, from a fund in which "none of the funds revert to Google." The claims administrator had more than 1.49 million timely claims by September 17, 2026, after emailing notice to 173,814,291 addresses. The settlement website says payments come after final approval "and after any appeals are resolved." Class counsel filed a proposed final judgment on October 20, 2026.

We found no term in the redacted settlement agreement about deleting anyone's recordings, so clearing your history is still up to you. This isn't legal advice.

How Morse keeps your questions out of a Google voice history

All of these steps are needed because what you say to Google's assistants is filed under your Google Account, in whichever history that device writes to, and deleting it starts a process that takes about two months on Google's servers, with backups kept for up to six. Morse is a web app at trymorse.ai where you type to over 30 models, open and closed, in one account. Your chat history is stored only in your browser, encrypted, and our servers don't keep your messages or log what you write, so there's no copy of your questions on our servers to hunt down and delete.

• Anonymous, to ask Gemini without Google knowing it's you. Pick Gemini from the model list. Our proxy removes your account, email, and IP address and sends the message under Morse's own account. Google sees the text without knowing it's you, and may keep it for a limited time to check for abuse, under its own policy. It still reads the words, so leave out names and addresses.
• Private, for questions you'd rather no host kept. Every new chat starts here. Open-weight models like DeepSeek, Kimi, and GLM, plus xAI's Grok, answer under the zero data retention agreements Morse has with its inference, search, and other providers, so they keep nothing. Where a provider confirms zero retention on each reply, Morse checks it and refuses a reply that doesn't.
• E2EE, for what you'd never say near a speaker. Your browser checks the secure enclave's hardware attestation, then encrypts the message so only that enclave can read it, and our servers relay ciphertext they can't read. The enclaves are run by third-party providers, not by Morse, and the guarantee depends on the enclave hardware and attestation working as designed. E2EE chats come with Pro, $19 a month.

In every mode, history locks when you sign out, and unlocking it takes two keys: one that never leaves your device and one our server gives you at sign-in. Morse doesn't train AI on your content, sell your data, or show ads (Morse privacy policy). Because we don't store chats, we usually have very little to give authorities. Clearing your browser deletes the chats for good, and we can't recover them, so copy anything you'll want later.

Which Google setting should you change?

• Old Assistant audio: delete it in Web & App Activity, then uncheck Include voice and audio activity.
• The text of what you asked: turn off Web & App Activity, or use Guest Mode on a shared speaker.
• A Nest speaker on Gemini for Home: delete Home History, and turn it off if you don't want your requests used to train Google's models.
• A phone on Gemini: delete Gemini Apps Activity and turn off Keep Activity. On Morse, you type the question, Gemini gets it in Anonymous mode without your account, and the chat stays in your browser.

Try a chat on the Morse home page without an account, or sign up free with no card.