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How to clear the Search History and recent activity info on Windows 10?

You may not know this but whenever you run a search in the Taskbar search box on your Windows 10 PC, this information will be stored in the system. What’s more, when you press the Win + S key combo on your PC, you will see a list of your recent search items. Your search history also appears when you click the Taskbar search box.

Perhaps, this is not something you feel comfortable with, and naturally, you’d rather keep this information private. Thankfully, there are several things you can do to make this information disappear.

If you are wondering how to clear recent activity in Windows 10, you’ve come to the right place. In this post, we will give you the steps for hiding your recent searches in Windows Taskbar.

How to Find my Activity History on Windows 10?

If you want to see the list of all your recent activity on your computer, you will simply need to follow the quick steps below:

  • First, use the Win + I key combo on your PC to get to Windows Settings.
  • Once you are in Settings, click Privacy.
  • On the left side of the Privacy Window, select Activity history.
  • Scroll down till you find Manage my Microsoft account activity data.
  • Your default web browser will now open and you will be prompted to log in using your
  • Microsoft account.
  • Once you are logged in, click the Activity History tab.
  • Here, you will be able to see your activity history.

Now, this can be quite a useful feature to have onboard. For instance, if you are sharing your computer with other people, the history tab will let you see what changes have been made to your system. On the other hand, it’s also perfectly understandable why you may want to disable this option. You may simply not want others to be able to track your activity on a computer. If this is the case, here’s how to clear Windows 10 search history.

How to Turn Off History on Windows 10?

If you are ready to get rid of activity history on your Windows 10 PC, you will need to take the following steps:

  • First, use the Win + I key combo on your keyboard (just like we did above) to bring up Windows Settings.
  • Next, click the Search option.
  • Go to the Permissions & History tab.
  • Here, you will see a section called History.
  • Select Clear device search history.

There you have it — your Windows Search history has now been cleared.

To confirm that your search history has been successfully removed, you can click the Taskbar search box and check if you can see your recent searches. If you can’t, the steps you’ve just taken have worked. If not, you may need to go back and make sure that you have completed all the steps correctly.

Now that your history has been cleared, you may want to take an extra step to ensure that Windows won’t continue storing your activity history. In order to do this, you will need to make a few changes to the Registry. However, before starting the process in the Registry Editor, it is strongly advised that you create a System Restore point.

A System Restore point is a very useful feature in Microsoft Windows that lets users go back to an earlier point in time on their system. You can use this feature to fix a whole range of malfunctions and issues on your computer. After all, it takes your system back to a time when these problems did not exist.

So, how do you create a System Restore point? The process is quite simple and won’t take much of your time. Just follow the steps below.

The first step would be to make sure that System Restore is enabled on your computer. In most cases, it will be enabled by default. However, in some cases, it may have been turned off accidentally. Thus, it is best to make sure that the feature is enabled on your PC. Here’s how:

  • Go to the search bar and type “system restore” (no quotes).
  • Click Create a restore point.
  • Go to System Protection.
  • Select the drive you want to check and click Configure.
  • Check if Turn on system protection is enabled — you will need to enable is for the
  • System Restore Utility to work.

Now, you can go on and create a System Restore point:

  • Go to Start.
  • Select Control Panel.
  • Then, navigate to System and Maintenance.
  • Click System.
  • On the left-hand side, select System protection.
  • Once in the System Protection tab, click Create.

Enter a description for the restore point that you want to create. You can use the date when this restore point was created or describe the reason for why you have created it: for example, “before update”.)

  • Finally, click Create.

There you have it — you have successfully created a System Restore point that will have your back should anything go wrong when you are making changes in the Registry.

Now, let’s get back to editing the Registry. Here are the steps to take to stop Windows from storing your search activity information:

  • On your keyboard, press the Win + I keys at the same time.
  • Type in “regedit” (no quotes) and press Enter.
  • You may receive a User Account Control message — click Yes.
  • Next, navigate to this path:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\SearchSettings

Right-click on SearchSettings > New > DWORD (32-bit) Value and name it as IsDeviceSearchHistoryEnabled.

  • Make sure the DWORD value is set to 0.
  • Click OK to save any changes you’ve made.

That’s it — Windows will no longer store any Windows Search history locally.

Finally, if you want to make sure that all the other elements on your PC are running properly, you can use a specialized tool like Auslogics BoostSpeed. BoostSpeed is an essential toolkit for optimizing your system that can help you avoid and resolve a whole range of glitches and errors. With Auslogics BoostSpeed, you will be able to remove unneeded applications, clear out junk, slim down your Windows, and remove file duplicates. The tool even defragments drives and cleans the Registry without risks.

BoostSpeed comes with a whole set of dedicated tools that can address a range of potential PC issues. For instance, the Optimize Tab in Auslogics BoostSpeed lets you boost system performance by using a specific mode based on what you are currently working on. You can choose between Game Mode, Office Mode, Economy Mode, Normal Mode, and Custom mode — and your system will be instantly adjusted to your requirements in just one click.

We hope that this post has been helpful and you have found the answers to your questions. Do you prefer to have your search history stored by Windows or have disabled the features? Let us know in the comments.