Did you know that every time you talk to Google Assistant, a recording of your voice command is uploaded and stored on Google servers? Yes, your voice commands are stored on your Google account!
I don’t know about you, but the thought of my voice data being in possession of Google seems freakish, and outright disturbing. Good thing there is an option of deleting them; albeit you have to do it manually. That is what this article is about. We are going to show you how to delete your voice data stored on Google’s server (your Google account).
How to Delete Voice Data gathered by Google Assistant
Launch your browser, and assuming you got internet connection head on to Google’s My Activity Page. If you are not logged into your Google account, you will be prompted to do so.
The default page view here lists down 22 different categories of items ranging from your YouTube activities down to Ads. While you can scroll through the whole list, it will save you a lot of time if you simply click the plus sign located on the left of Filter by date & product.
Once you click the ‘+’ sign, a dropdown menu will appear where you can choose Assistant, Home, and Voice & Audio. What you are really after is the latter, but there is no harm in including all of the Assistant Activities in the results you query.
Next hit the search button, and it will display information only under those categories you selected. The results will have audio recordings (voice data) you used while commanding Google Assistant. You can go through them by hitting the Play button located beside all the audio files.
Deleting your Voice Data
You can delete each voice recording one by one, or you can go to My Activity Page and click on Delete Activity By located on the left panel of the menu. Should you not see it, click the three lines (running horizontally) located at the top left corner.
Next choose a range of date in the dropdown or give specific date range by selecting the dates on the date boxes. Under the All Products dropdown, select the category of items you want to delete. Then hit the Delete button. The same procedure applies if you want to delete other item categories.
So why did Google design the Google Assistant to record and store your voice?
From the surface it looks very strange why Google Assistant records and stores your voice. However, think about when your Google Home malfunctions? How will you know if the mic is the problem? Well, you will simply log into My Activity Page and check to see if the device’s mic is actually listening to you. The recording come pretty handy in using elimination test to diagnose a problem with the Google Home device.