Manage personalization and history on Google Play

To help improve your experience, Google Play can provide you with relevant content tailored for you, which can include app and book recommendations, offers, and search results. These recommendations and offers can be presented in Google Play, as well as in apps and games available through Google Play, to help provide you with the best experience across the Play ecosystem.

Personalization is based on information such as your Play History, your Play content including items you purchased or downloaded from Play, and information in your Google Account. If Play History is turned off, personalization results may not be as relevant to you, but Play can still give you more personalized experiences based on other information in your Google Account.

When Play personalization is turned off, Play won’t use your data for personalization but will still tailor your experience based on info such as the device you’re using, the country you’re in, and the apps you’ve installed. For example, Play can prioritize updates for the apps you use the most, or you could see app recommendations for topics you’ve previously selected as a personal interest. Other Google services may also use Play History for personalization based on other settings in your Google Account.

Personalization in other Google services isn’t managed through Personalization in Play. Go to account.google.com to manage settings for other services.

When Play personalization is turned on, you can control two additional settings for specific categories of information, but when Play personalization is turned off, these settings aren’t available.

Your device details

Play can use information about the devices you use while signed into your account when personalizing your experiences. For example, Play can recommend apps based on the types of devices you use.

If you turn off this setting, Play can still personalize your experience based on other information, but it won’t personalize based on your device details.

Your Play content

All the items you acquire through Play, which includes things like apps, games, books, and watch faces, are included in your Play content, even if they aren’t currently installed or stored on your device. Play can use information about these items to give you a more personalized experience. For example, Play can show you apps that are related to those you already have or recommend the next book in a series that you’ve started reading.

If you don’t want Play to personalize your experience based on your Play content, you can turn off personalization based on some or all of those items. Changes to content settings may take up to 24 hours to take effect.

Play History includes your searches on Google Play, the apps you use on your device, and information that apps share with Google, along with certain other information about your activity, such as which app details pages you’ve viewed and which offers you’ve interacted with.

This history can be saved in your Google Account and used to improve your experience across Google services, like helping you find the apps, games, and books you’re looking for faster. For example, Google can use your app usage activity to give you personalized recommendations when your Play personalization setting is on. Google also uses this data for purposes described in the Google Privacy Policy, such as for product improvement. Your Play History is always visible in Personalization in Play, where you can see individual events, search for specific events, and delete history at any time.

When Play History is turned off, Google won’t save your new activity to your Google Account’s Play History, but Google still collects and processes data, including Play activity data, for the purposes described in the Google Privacy Policy. For example, Google will temporarily associate your activity with your account to do things like ensure you receive a contextually relevant experience or to debug and maintain its services. Google will keep other information in your account, like items you purchase and download and features you interact with. Some information is collected because you've enabled other settings or features, like Play Pass, Play Quests, and stats displayed in your Play Games Profile. Google also collects data that is not associated with your account to provide, understand, improve, and develop our services.

Play History includes additional settings to give you more specific control over two kinds of information that can be saved to your Google Account’s Play History: your activity on Play and which apps you use on your device. When the main Play History setting is on, these two settings can be turned off independently, but if the main setting is off then all history settings are automatically turned off, too.

Even when Play History is off, Google still collects, uses, and processes data, including Play activity and app usage data, in accordance with the Google Privacy Policy.

Your Play content, which includes the books, games, apps, watch faces, and other items you’ve acquired through Play isn’t included in Play History. For example, even if you turn off Play History or delete your Play History information, Play retains a record of the items you’ve purchased and acquired so you can download and access them at any time. 

Some information is collected because you've enabled other settings or features. For example, if you subscribe to Play Pass, Play measures your Play Pass app and game usage to determine how much developers earn through participation in Play Pass. Additionally, if you join Play Points, or start a Play Quest, your progress and membership won’t be interrupted if you turn off Play History. Or if you create a Play Games profile, your game activity will still be saved to provide features such as game stats. Play Games profile data is separate from Play History data. Deleting your Play Games profile or specific data from your Play Games profile will not delete data from your Play History. The reverse is also true. Learn how to manage a Play Games profile.

Google also retains data that isn’t associated with your account for purposes such as fraud prevention and to provide, understand, improve, and develop our services.

For more information about Google’s data retention practices, see Google’s Privacy Policy.

You have a choice for how long Google will keep the information in your Play History. Google can automatically delete Play History over time or keep it until you delete it manually.

If you choose automatic deletion, you’ll also get to choose how long information is saved before being deleted, whether it’s for 3 months, 18 months, or 36 months. Any data will automatically be deleted as soon as it has been saved for the length of time you’ve chosen.

If you decide not to set up automatic deletion, then Play History is kept in your Google Account unless you manually delete it. You have the option to delete all history at once or delete individual events at any time.

When you delete Play History, Google still retains some data. For example, Play keeps information about the items you’ve purchased and downloaded so you’ll still have access to them. Deleting your Play History doesn’t affect information collected by other settings or features you’ve enabled. For example, if you’ve created a Play Games Profile, it will keep information about your app activity to show you game stats. Deleting your Play History also doesn’t affect data that has been disconnected from your account which Google retains to provide, understand, improve, and develop our services. See Google’s Privacy Policy for more information.

Play may use information about devices that you’ve used with Play, such as make or model, to provide more personalized experiences.

To control whether Play can use information about the devices associated with your account to improve personalization:

1. Open the Google Play Store app .
2. Tap your Profile picture Personalization in Play Other Play personalization options.
3. Turn Your device details on or off.

If you turn off device details-based personalization, Play will continue to use device details to ensure we deliver the right experience while you are browsing Play in order to ensure we can deliver the right apps and games for your devices.

You can personalize your experience based on items you’ve bought or acquired through Play, like apps, books, or games. You can tell Play not to use data associated with that item for personalization within Play and other experiences across the Play ecosystem. For example, if you turn off personalization for a particular app, then data such as app activity, purchases, offers, when you installed or uninstalled that app, and activity related to Google Play Games and your Google Play Games Profile associated with that app will not be used for personalization on Play.

To control which items may be used to personalize your experience on Play:

1. Open the Google Play Store .
2. Tap your Profile picture Personalization in Play Other Play personalization options.
3. Under “Your Play content,” tap Manage.
4. Under “Your content,” turn specific apps or content on or off.