How to Keep Your Data Private in Gemini: Activity and Temporary Chats

The short version

One setting decides most of it: Keep Activity. On, Gemini saves your chats, works with your Google apps, and some chats may be read by trained reviewers. Off, chats aren’t saved or used for training, but many features stop working. For most people the answer is: leave it on, shorten auto-delete, and use temporary chats for anything sensitive.

Step by step

1. Find your activity

On gemini.google.com, click Settings & help > Activity, or go to myactivity.google.com/product/gemini. Google says Keep Activity is on by default if you’re 18 or over.

2. Shorten auto-delete

By default, Google deletes Gemini activity older than 18 months. Click the auto-delete option near the top and choose 3 months, 36 months, or don’t auto-delete.

3. Delete what you regret

Use Delete above your activity for the last hour, last day, a custom range or all time, or delete a single item. Google notes that chats already reviewed by humans aren’t deleted this way; they’re kept for up to three years, disconnected from your account.

4. Use temporary chats

Click Temporary chat next to New chat. Google says temporary chats don’t appear in your activity or recent chats, aren’t used to train its models, and are kept for 72 hours. You can’t use connected apps or personalization in them.

5. Check memory and connected apps

Under Settings & help > Personal Intelligence, you can turn Memory off and manage Instructions for Gemini. Under Customize > Connectors, disconnect apps you don’t want Gemini to read, such as Gmail or Photos.

6. Leave voice training off

Using your audio and Gemini Live video for improving Google services is a separate checkbox in Activity. Google says it’s off by default.

Never paste

• Passwords, recovery codes or API keys
• Card or bank numbers, Social Security or ID numbers
• Other people’s medical, legal or financial details
• Confidential company documents you aren’t allowed to share

Google’s own advice: don’t enter anything you wouldn’t want a reviewer to see.

Prompts to copy

Work with placeholders:

I've replaced names and numbers with [CLIENT], [AMOUNT] and [DATE].
Keep the placeholders in your answer.
[paste text]

Example

You want to ask: how to answer a debt collection letter, and you’d rather it not sit in your history.

What to do: click Temporary chat, describe the letter without your name, account number or the collector’s reference, and ask what your options are. Close the chat when you’re done, and confirm anything you’ll act on with a consumer-rights source or an advisor.

Mistakes to avoid

• Assuming off means gone. Even with Keep Activity off, Google keeps chats for 72 hours.
• Sending feedback on sensitive chats. Google says reviewed feedback and the related chat are kept for up to three years.
• Forgetting the workplace rules. On a work or school account, your administrator controls these settings and retention.
• Connecting every app. Connect what you’ll actually use.

Good to know

Google says your chats with Gemini inside Gmail and Slides aren’t saved to Gemini Apps Activity. Settings and names change; if a menu has moved, search the Gemini Apps Privacy Hub. Before switching Keep Activity off, see what you’d lose in connect Gemini to Gmail and Drive.

Related: how to use Gemini.