While not as fun or entertaining as a real voice assistant like Cortana or Siri, Google's voice search has been used quite often by users to ask sometimes random questions, sometimes relevant to the search assistant, at least by those users i whose accents is the Google search can understand. When you understand the question, the results offered are quick and accurate, making it popular, especially among customers who don't access Siri and Cortana. While that's okay, the odd thing is that Google's voice search has stored recordings of the questions that all users have been asking since it was used.
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Why should Google voice search archive those recordings?
Many have speculated as to the true reasons for the archived recordings, but it's all just speculation as Google hasn't come forward and answered the question. A safe reasoning would be that Google wants to analyze and make voice search understand various accents and the difference between all of them so that voice search can better answer questions.
Many others have speculated that Google may be trying to create their own artificial intelligent robot. Whatever the cause, many users are annoyed and, to say the least, uncomfortable, to hear their own voices repeat the question they asked Google voice search in the past. It doesn't seem to be a security concern as Google has been transparent enough to provide the same list of voice search recordings made by each user available only to that user. But for those who were baffled by these recordings, here's how to get rid of them:
How to delete Google voice search recordings history
- Go to history.google.com
- You will need to log into your Google account with your login credentials.
- In the top left corner of the page that opens, click the three horizontal lines icon next to Google Web and Apps.
- Select Voice and audio activity.
- On the page that opens, you will see a list of all your voice search recordings in the past.
- Click the Play button next to a question to hear yourself. To delete the question, select it from the checkbox provided.
- Click the Delete button at the top of the screen. Repeat this process if you want to eliminate specific questions.
- If you want to delete all voice search recording history, please click on the three dot menu located in the upper right corner of the screen.
- Select Remove options in the option box that appears.
- A box labeled “Delete voice and audio activity for:” will appear with the options “Today”, “Yesterday” and “Advanced”.
- Go ahead and select Advanced. A menu called Select Date will appear.
- Choose Always from the drop-down menu and click Delete.
If you don't want Google Voice Search to re-record your voice, there are two options.
You can choose not to use Google's voice search anymore, but it might be an unwanted solution if you want to use the service.
The second option is neater. This is what you need to do:
- Go to the Google Account History page, whose link is https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols/audio
- Under the Activity Control heading, you will find an option called “Your searches and voice commands” with a slider next to it.
- If the slider is blue, it means that Google Voice has stored your voice searches. Just move the cursor to the other side, thus stopping data collection using voice search. This way, your voice searches will not be recorded.
