This feature has been making headlines for some time and was first spotted by former XDA Developers editor-in-chief Mishaal Rahman. Also, it was available for some test users. Now, it is broadly available, and all users can delete their 15 minutes of search history. Open Google’s Android app, tap your profile picture, and look for the “Delete last 15 min” option to check the availability. Google spokesperson Ned Adriance has confirmed to The Verge that they are “rolling this feature out on the Google app for Android and expect it to be available to everyone using the app in the next few weeks,” Adriance also said that Google is working to bring this feature to other surfaces.
You can now delete the last 15 minutes of your search history
At Google I/O in May last year, the company first announced it is working on a feature that allows for deleting the last 15 minutes of search history. Later in July, it came to Google’s iOS app. Google first intended to bring the feature to the Android version in late 2021. However, the company failed to meet the deadline due to some unannounced reasons. Moreover, the platforms that will receive this feature are still unknown, and Google didn’t specify the host platforms. For now, it is available for mobile users only, and it may come to desktop in future updates. For a side note, it’s good to know that Google allows for deleting the last 3, 18, or 36 months of search history. Also, manually removing search history is possible. But the ability to remove the last 15 minutes could be pretty handy as it prevents losing much history, and it is more convenient than manually removing the items.
