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How to Delete History on Chromebook – Before You Start
Chromebooks are devices powered by Google’s Chrome OS, designed for constantly online individuals.
Perhaps you want to lend your Chromebook to someone or sell it; in that case, you should delete your history. After all, browsing history certainly qualifies as personal information.
Sometimes, you might want to delete history on your Chromebook because it’s lagging. If you’ve performed a system cleanup on your device, you might have noticed that browsing data occupies most of Chromebook storage space, especially if you are an extensive web surfer.
In this review, we will look at the step-by-step process of deleting history on a Chromebook. Several methods exist: do it manually through the browser settings or use a browser extension.
What Does the History Page Contain?
The history page on your Chromebook displays all the websites you’ve visited in the last 90 days. Unfortunately, the history page doesn’t include pages you’ve removed from your browsing history, pages visited in incognito mode, or settings history.
If you’ve signed into the Chrome browser and synced your history, then the history page will show all the websites you’ve visited on all synced devices for a much longer. Additionally, if you’re signed out of Chrome, the history page won’t display web pages from your other devices.
The Process of Deleting History on Chromebook Is as Follows
Find Chromebook History
- Launch the Chrome Browser on your Chromebook and open a new tab.
- Next, click on the triple-dot menu in the top-right corner of your screen. You can also press (CTRL+H) on your keyboard to open the ‘History‘ menu.
- In the drop-down menu that appears, scroll down and click on ‘History.’
- The tab that will appear is the ‘Chrome History‘ tab, and it will display all the Google Chrome browsing history on the Chromebook you’re currently using.
- You can click on ‘Tabs from other devices‘ under ‘Chrome History‘ to see the history of all other devices synced to your Chromebook. This is important because it will help you decide how to delete history; you might want to keep history on other devices.
Delete All Chromebook History at Once
Chrome allows you to clear all history at once if there’s nothing specific you need to retain. The steps for doing this are as follows:
- Click on ‘Clear browsing data‘; a pop-up window will appear.
- On the ‘Basic‘ tab, uncheck everything except for ‘Browsing history.’
- Click on the ‘Clear data‘ button in the bottom-right corner of the pop-up window.
- You’ll now see the pop-up window empty, indicating that the browser history has been cleared.
Delete Chromebook History by Website
If you don’t want to delete all the browsing history on your Chromebook, you can choose to delete specific web pages. The steps for doing this are as follows:
- Uncheck the checkboxes of all the pages you want to keep. You’ll notice that the checkboxes on the pages you’ve not unchecked remain blue.
- Now move your cursor to the ‘Delete‘ button in the screen’s upper-right corner and click on it. This will delete the web page you don’t want to keep.
- Google has implemented a safety measure in the browser to prevent accidental deletions. Therefore, a pop-up will appear asking if you want to delete the checked web pages. Click ‘Remove‘ to delete them.
Delete Chromebook History by Date
If all you’re trying to do is delete history from a specific date, it’s possible. The steps for doing this are as follows:
- Click ‘Clear browsing data,’ and a pop-up window will appear.
- Click on the ‘Advanced‘ tab for the drop-down menu with time options. Now, you can uncheck anything in this menu you’d like to retain.
- You can click ‘Time range‘ then ‘All time’ to choose how far back you’d like to delete your browser history. There are several options available down to the last hour.
Note: If you browse the web a lot on your Chromebook, cookies, history, passwords, and images can make your device sluggish. Remember, Chromebooks usually don’t have a lot of storage space, so it’s important to clean non-vital data from time to time.
Final Thoughts
The steps may vary depending on the specific Chromebook model and version of Chrome OS. It is recommended that you consult the official Chromebook support documentation.
To sum it all up, a Google Chromebook is very handy for erasing your browsing history because it allows you to delete history on the device itself and synce it with other devices. What’s more, you can delete all the browsing history on your Chromebook at once, by date or website, allowing you to retain only the crucial history. See Also