[Tip] Disable or Clear Timeline and Activity History in Windows 10
Timeline is a new feature present in newer Windows 10 versions which allows you to travel in time. Many times we are working on emails, files, watching videos, browsing through photos, websites, etc and after a few days when we want to open them again, we can’t locate them. We can’t remember where we watched that video, which website we opened in Microsoft Edge, where we saved a particular file.
Timeline feature has been introduced in Windows 10 to help users in keeping track of their work across devices. It allows users to easily and quickly find their files, applications, windows, etc that they were using over time with the help of activities. Activities are basically a collection or combination of your previously used apps, files, windows and specific piece of content you were working on at a specific time.
With the help of Timeline feature, you can resume your past activities not only on your Windows 10 devices but also on your iOS and Android devices linked to your Microsoft account.
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To use Timeline you just need to click on Task View icon present on the Taskbar. Yes, Timeline feature has been merged into Task View and both can be accessed using the same button. You can also use WIN+Tab hotkey (keyboard shortcut) to launch Timeline.
Timeline shows snapshots of all your activities on a specific day, grouped by hour. You can also easily search for something you’d like to go back to. Timeline shows up to 30 days of past activities.
Since Timeline feature is completely based on activities, a history of your activities is collected by Windows and synced from your PC to the cloud. If you are concerned about privacy, you can disable Timeline and activity history feature to stop Windows 10 from collecting your activity history.
Following steps will help you in turning off Timeline and activity history features in Windows 10:
1. Open Settings app from Start Menu or by pressing WIN+I keys together.
2. Now go to “Privacy -> Activity history” section.
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PS: Alternatively, You can directly launch this page using “ms-settings:privacy-activityhistory” command in RUN dialog box as mentioned here.
3. Now in right-side pane, look for following option:
- Let Windows collect my activities from this PC
- Let Windows sync my activities from this PC to the cloud
Disable both these options to completely disable Timeline and activity history features.
4. If you don’t want to disable Timeline and activity history features, but want to restrict Windows 10 from showing activity history of your selected Microsoft accounts, you can set the toggle buttons to OFF for your desired Microsoft accounts present in “Show activities from accounts” section.
5. If you want to clear all your collected activity history, click on “Clear” button present in “Clear activity history” section.
BONUS TIP:
Windows 10 occasionally shows tips, suggestions, advertisements in Timeline, you can turn off these suggestions using following steps:
1. Open Settings app again.
2. Now go to “System -> Multitasking” section.
PS: Alternatively, You can directly launch this page using “ms-settings:multitasking” command in RUN dialog box.
3. Now in right-side pane, look for following option:
- Show suggestions occasionally in Timeline
Set this option to OFF and it’ll disable suggestions in Timeline.
Also Check:
[Tip] Disable Advertisements, Suggestions and Tips in Windows 10
somehow i can’t access the activity history page you mention above. i get a message, “some settings are hidden or managed by your organization.” it flashes for a second or two then disappears. what can i do?
^^ Is the page available in Settings app or are you launching it using the shortcut command?
both. but, for some reason, now, it’s working. but this is a question i’ve had for some time now–what do we do when, in Settings, we come across this message? this is my home computer and i’m the only one that uses it, so how could it be “managed” by some organization? thanks for any advice you might have and thank you so much for this great website!
^^ This message appears when some settings have been restricted or modified using Group Policy editor or a 3rd party tweaking/customization software. Did you apply any group policy or use any 3rd party software?
no to either one. perhaps there’s a way to fix this via the group policy editor? but i have windows 10 home edition, so maybe that’s not possible?
How to Clear File Explorer Search History in Windows 10
The search box in File Explorer will show a list of suggestions as you type in the search box. These suggestions are the history of your past typed searches into the search box.
This quick tip will show you how to clear the typed search history in File Explorer for your account in Windows 10.
To Clear All File Explorer Search History using a BAT file;
Copy and paste the following information to Notepad and save it as e.g.
“Clear Search history.bat” with the inverted commas included.
REG Delete HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\WordWheelQuery /VA /F
Now launch it as Administrator and it will clear all search history.
P.S. VG can probably make the .bat file and place it for all to use.
^^ Please check following tutorial related to it:
https://www.askvg.com/how-to-disable-display-of-recent-search-entries-in-windows-7-explorer-search-box/