When you type any phrase in the Google Chrome search bar, the system helpfully offers suggestions to speed up the search for the information you need. Someone really needs them, but someone annoys them (besides, you can track the history of your requests on them if the phone gets into someone else’s hands).
If you qualify yourself to the second category (to those who are not interested in this “help”), you probably want to get to learn how to turn off Google suggestions on Android. It is possible to do it. How? Let’s get all this straightened out.
Search suggestions are formed with due consideration of 2 factors:
- Your interests and history of your activity.
- Popular searches in your geographical region.
In the first case, the data is taken from your device and your Google account. And in the second case, the data is taken from a search engine.
How to turn off the formation of suggestions when entering text in the search bar
Step 1. You need to disable suggestions in the Google Chrome browser
To do this, proceed as follows:
- Launch Chrome on your device.
- Click on the icon in the upper right corner.
- Click on the “Settings” item in the list appeared.
- Next, go to the “Advanced” item and click on “Privacy”.
IMPORTANT! There may be a “Privacy and Security” item instead of “Privacy” depending on the phone brand and the version of Chrome.
- Find the “Search and URL suggestions” item in the list and uncheck the box next to it.
After that, suggestions generated by the search engine (including those popular in your region) will stop displaying when you enter text in the search box.
BUT. This is only half of solving the problem of how to turn off Google suggestions on Android. Recommendations based on your interests will continue to be displayed. They can and should be disabled as well.
Step 2. You need to block data collection for suggestions generated based on your interests and history of your activity
By default, Android collects a history of your actions (in search engines, in applications, voice commands, etc.). It is used, in particular, in creating recommendations in the search box. Accordingly, for the purpose to stop Google suggestions on Android, you should perform some work with your account settings and history.
To do this, proceed as follows:
- Log in to your Google Account. You can do this, for example, through Settings -> Google -> Google Account.
- Click the “Privacy & personalization” item and then click “Manage your data & personalization”.
- Click “Manage your activity controls” in the “Activity controls” section.
- Next, you need to set the switch to the “OFF” position (the left position) opposite all the items. The “Web & App Activity” item is especially important here, as namely, it is responsible for collecting most of the data.
In such a way, we have disabled data collection. But our task is not completed. Even, after all, some historical data is still preserved. And it will be used to formulate recommendations when typing in the search bar. This history must be deleted.
Step 3. You need to delete the history of our activity from your Google account
To completely get rid of Google suggestions on Android, it remains only to “wipe out” the history. To do this, you will need to log into your Google account again (Settings -> Google -> Google Account) and go to the “Data & personalization” category.
Then, select the “My Activity” item in the “Activity & timeline” category.
Click the icon in the upper right corner in the window appeared. To select the timespan for deleting activity information, click “Delete activity by” in the list.
Select the “All time” and “All products” items and click “Delete” in the window appeared. The history has been deleted from the account.
But there is worse to come. The history is also in Chrome itself. To delete it, proceed as follows:
- Click on the icon in the upper right corner of the browser.
- Click “History in the list appeared.
Then, select the “All time” item, check the boxes next to all items and click the “Clear data” button in the section appeared.
- Select “Clear browsing data” in the window appeared.
This will delete the web browsing history, autosuggest data and other information.
NOTA BENE. These actions also delete the passwords on sites that the browser has “remembered”. Therefore, we recommend you to make sure that you remember them before deleting.
There is another method of how to delete Google suggestions on Android
But it is long and does not give any guarantee.
Some people delete unwanted suggestions and links to sites that pop up when typing in the search bar in another method. You just need to click on the desired recommendation and hold it until a window appears with a proposal to send feedback.
After that, you should specify the reason and click “Send feedback”. After that, the suggestion will stop displaying for a while.
But if Google decides that your claim is not reasoned, it may appear again.
This method is very long, as you will have to do such manipulations for each recommendation. And indeed, you will not be able to turn off all and every Google suggestions in such away. They will still appear.
Before and After Results
You see that you can solve the problem of how to stop Google suggestions on Android on your own, without addressing to professionals. The main thing is to carefully follow all of the above steps. As a result, you get a “clean” phone without annoying recommendations.
