Guide

How to delete your Gemini chat history

Gemini saves your chats in your Google Account until you remove them or auto-delete does it for you. Here's how to delete one chat or all of them, how to make old chats disappear automatically, and what deleting doesn't touch.

Updated 15 October 2026

Quick answer: to remove a single chat, hover over it in the Gemini sidebar, click More (the three dots) and choose Delete. To remove more at once, open Activity in Gemini (or go to myactivity.google.com/product/gemini), click Delete above the list and pick Last hour, Last day, Custom range or All time. Old chats are deleted automatically after 18 months unless you change that to 3 or 36 months, or turn auto-delete off.

These steps cover personal Google Accounts and were checked against Google's Gemini Apps Help in October 2026. Menu names can shift slightly between app versions.

Delete one chat from the sidebar

This is the quickest route when only one or two conversations need to go. Deleting a chat here also removes it from Gemini Apps Activity.

Go to gemini.google.com on your computer.
If the chat list is hidden, click Menu at the top to open the side panel.
Hover over the chat you want to remove, in your pinned or recent chats.
Click More, then Delete.

In the Gemini app on Android, iPhone or iPad, tap Menu at the top, touch and hold the chat under Recent, then tap Delete.

Delete a day, a date range or everything

For bulk clean-ups, use Gemini Apps Activity. It lists every saved prompt, grouped by day.

On gemini.google.com, click Activity (Google also lists it under Settings & help). You can jump straight there at myactivity.google.com/product/gemini.
To clear a period, click Delete above your activity and choose Last hour, Last day or Custom range.
To wipe your whole Gemini history, click Delete and choose All time.
To clear one date, use the delete button next to that day (Delete all activity from [day]).
To remove a single entry, use the delete button next to it (Delete activity item).

In the Gemini app, tap Menu, then your profile picture or initial, then Gemini Apps Activity. The same Delete options appear above the list.

Change or turn off auto-delete

By default, Gemini Apps activity older than 18 months is deleted automatically. You can shorten or lengthen that, or switch it off.

Open Activity as above.
Near the top, click Deleting activity older than … months, or Choose an auto-delete option if none is set.
Pick 3, 18 or 36 months, or select Don't auto-delete activity.
Click Next, then finish the remaining on-screen steps.

Three months is a reasonable choice if you rarely go back to old chats and would rather not build up a long record.

What deleting removes, and what it leaves

Removed with the chat: deleting a chat from the sidebar also deletes what was created in it, such as Canvas docs and apps. Deleting a Gemini Live chat from your activity removes its audio, transcript, video and screen shares too.
Gems survive. Deleting a conversation you had with a Gem leaves the Gem itself in place; it has to be deleted separately.
Check your public links. Google's help pages disagree on whether deleting a shared chat also takes down its public link: the sharing page says it does, the activity page says it doesn't. To be sure, delete the link yourself under Settings & help → Your public links; our guide to sharing AI chats safely covers this.
Reviewed chats are kept. A subset of chats is read by human reviewers to improve Google's services. Those reviewed chats aren't connected to your account, so deleting your activity doesn't remove them; Google retains them for up to three years.
Some account data stays. Google keeps certain information, such as how often you use Gemini, until you delete your Google Account. Data held by other Google services you used through Gemini follows those services' own rules.

Once you delete something, Google says it first removes it from view and then starts a process to erase it from its storage systems.

Good to know

Work and school accounts are different. Your Workspace administrator controls Gemini activity settings, including retention. Google says users of these accounts can't delete chats, and you may not even see how long chats are kept.
Gemini in Gmail and Docs keeps its own history. Google says chats with Gemini in Gmail aren't saved to Gemini Apps Activity, and side-panel history in Workspace apps is kept per app. Where your plan has this history, delete it from the panel: Ask Gemini → More options, hover over a chat under History, then More → Delete.
Want a copy first? Deleting is final, so download anything worth keeping beforehand. Our guide to exporting Gemini chats shows how.
Stopping future saving is a separate step. Turning off Keep Activity stops new chats being added to your activity, though Google still holds them with your account for up to 72 hours. For a single conversation, a temporary chat is the alternative: Google keeps it with your account for 72 hours and doesn't use it to train its AI models.

If it doesn't work

There's no Delete option in the sidebar. On a personal account, pinning, renaming and deleting chats only work while Keep Activity is on. Use the Activity page instead. On a work or school account, Google says you can't delete chats yourself; your administrator sets how long they're kept.
You can't find the Activity page. Go straight to myactivity.google.com/product/gemini, and check you're signed in to the same Google Account you use for Gemini.
A shared chat still opens after you deleted it. Delete the link itself in Settings & help → Your public links. Deleting a link doesn't remove posts where you pasted it, so take those down separately.
Recent chats are still there after you set auto-delete. Auto-delete applies to activity older than the period you chose. To clear newer chats now, use Delete → Custom range or All time.

Keeping the chats you do want

If you're deleting because your history has turned into a long list that's hard to search, Workbranch is another way to work: answers come from Google Gemini, and conversations sit in an inbox by day, in projects and color-coded folders, with pinning and ⌘K search. There's a 3-day free trial.

Sources

Manage & delete your activity in Gemini Apps (Gemini Apps Help, checked 15 October 2026)
Find & manage your recent chats in Gemini Apps (Gemini Apps Help, checked 15 October 2026)
Gemini Apps Privacy Hub (Gemini Apps Help, checked 15 October 2026)
Use Gemini Apps with a work or school Google Account (Gemini Apps Help, checked 15 October 2026)
Share your chats from Gemini Apps (Gemini Apps Help, checked 15 October 2026)
Collaborate with Gemini in Gmail (Gmail Help, checked 15 October 2026)
Find & manage your Gemini in Workspace conversation history (Gmail Help, checked 15 October 2026)
Export responses from Gemini Apps (Gemini Apps Help, checked 15 October 2026)
How to download your Google data (Google Account Help, checked 15 October 2026)

Frequently asked questions

Can I get a deleted Gemini chat back?

Plan on no. Google's Gemini help describes no way to restore deleted activity, and its Takeout help warns that data already removed from its storage systems is unlikely to be recoverable. If you might need a chat later, download a copy with Google Takeout before you delete it.

Does turning off Keep Activity erase my old chats?

Not on its own. When you switch the setting off, Gemini offers two choices: Turn off, which only stops saving new chats, or Turn off and delete activity, which also clears what's already there.

Does deleting Gemini activity remove things I sent to other apps?

No. Google says data that other apps received from Gemini isn't touched when you delete your Gemini Apps activity; those apps keep it under their own policies. A response you exported with Export to Docs, for example, is a separate doc that you'd remove in Docs or Drive.