What does Google know about me? Where to find your data

Google keeps different kinds of information in different places. Your account profile holds details you supplied. My Activity shows saved activity from supported services. Maps has separate controls for location history.

There is no single page that displays everything Google could hold about you. You can still get a useful picture without downloading years of data. Start with the account you use most and work through the areas below.

1. Make sure you are in the right account

Open your Google Account and check the email address under your profile picture. This is easy to miss if you switch between a work account and a personal one.

Visit Personal info to review the details attached to that account. An old phone number can cause a practical problem if you need it to recover access.

Then open Data & privacy. This is the starting point for the account’s activity and privacy controls. Work or school accounts may have controls managed by the organisation.

Google’s privacy controls guide explains the available tools. Some settings are being updated, so labels may differ between accounts.

2. Look through My Activity

Open My Activity while signed in to the account you want to check.

Use the date and product filters rather than scrolling through everything. You could start with one week of search activity, then look at another service you use regularly.

Open an entry that surprises you. A topic in your history does not necessarily describe your interests. You may have searched for a present or looked something up for someone else.

My Activity shows activity saved under the relevant settings. It is not a complete inventory of all information across every Google product. An empty view is not proof that the account contains no data.

Google’s My Activity guide explains what can appear and how to filter or delete entries.

3. Check advertising personalisation separately

Visit My Ad Center to see the advertising controls available to your account. Review the information used for ad personalisation and change preferences you do not want applied.

Treat these as advertising controls. Turning personalised ads off does not delete all your Google information, and it does not mean you will stop seeing adverts.

If an ad seems oddly specific, it is tempting to assume Google has discovered a hidden fact about you. An ad alone cannot tell you exactly why it was selected. Review the explanations and settings available rather than treating the advert as a reliable account profile.

Google explains My Ad Center here.

4. Check Maps Timeline on your device

If you use Timeline, open Google Maps on your phone and look for Your Timeline under your account menu.

Current Timeline uses device-based storage, with an optional encrypted backup. Old instructions directing everyone to a complete browser map of their location history may no longer fit the version you use.

Look at the controls for the device in front of you, including whether backup is enabled. Review a period you recognise before drawing conclusions from a missing journey. The available history depends on the feature’s settings and the data present on that device.

Google’s Timeline guide explains the current arrangement.

5. Download a copy only if you need one

Use Google Takeout when you want to examine data outside the account interface or keep an export.

Deselect the products you do not need, then choose the ones relevant to your question. A review of YouTube viewing does not require an archive of your email.

Store the download somewhere private. It can contain information about other people as well as you. Exporting creates a copy and does not delete the originals from Google.

Google’s download guide explains the export process and its limits. If you want help understanding a file, start by sharing its field names rather than uploading the whole archive to an AI assistant.

Use AI Passport for the context you choose to reuse

Finding information in an account does not mean all of it belongs in an AI memory. Most search history is a record of something you did, rather than a preference you want applied forever.

AI Passport holds selected personal context that connected assistants can use with your permission. You could save a preference you have confirmed yourself, such as travelling by train when the journey is under four hours.

A permitted assistant could use that preference when helping with a later trip. You would not need to upload your Maps history to explain it.

Ask a connected assistant to propose the preference, then check the wording in Passport before approving it. App access to the relevant context is a separate decision. Passport does not acquire your entire Google account through a saved preference, and live access to a linked source has its own permission boundary.

Read about AI Passport’s controls.

Choose one change to make while you are reviewing the account. Correcting an old recovery number or removing an unwanted activity entry is more useful than downloading an archive you never open.