How To Delete Browsing History On Android Device

By Technobezz

First Published on July 21, 2018 | RECENTLY REVISED

This article is 4 years old.

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The availability of the Internet on the smartphone has made our life easier than before. We can access the Internet when we are on the go. However, like our computer’s web browser, android phone’s browser also keeps a list of the sites that we open or visit. It makes visiting some important sites easier, but also can create an embarrassing situation at the same time. For example, you do not want others to see your browsing history, or you want to sell your old android device, in such cases, knowing how to clear history on android is very important.

Here we will discuss some methods to clear android phone history. You can follow any of them.

If you have accidentally deleted the photos on your android and want to recover them, then visit the link. The steps to recover photos on android are given there.

Steps to delete history on android

Clear stock browser

First of all, the Internet browser needs to be launched. You will have to delete history on android through the app’s settings.
Touch the Menu button. You can tap the browser’s menu button which is located at the upper-right corner or tap your device’s Menu button.
Touch Settings. It will bring a new window with browser’s settings.
On that screen, you have to touch Privacy. It will show the privacy management options.
The last step is to tap “Clear History” which will erase all the stored website address that you visited. Touch “Clear all cookie data” if you want to delete cookies as well.

Clear history from Mozilla Firefox

Launch the Firefox browser on your android device.
Touch Menu button, which is located at the upper right corner and represented with three boxes vertically.
Tap Settings to bring the settings screen of the Firefox browser.
Touch Privacy. It will display a new screen with privacy management options.
“Clear Private Data” needs to be tapped. It will show you a checklist with different types of items, and that can be erased. Make sure that you are checking “Browsing and Download history.” After you have checked the required checkboxes, tap “Clear Data”.

Image source – www.howtogeek.com

How to delete browsing history on android chrome

Launch the chrome browser on your android phone. For Google chrome also, you have to delete the browser history from the browser.
After opening the Chrome browser, you will find a Menu button which is represented with three boxes vertically. Tap that button.
There you need to touch the Settings. It will take you to the settings screen of the Google Chrome.
Touch Privacy which you will find in the Advanced section of the Settings.
On that screen, an option is there “Clear Browsing Data”. Tap that option.
Now mark the checkbox next to “Clear Browsing history”. It will erase all the browsing phone history for the Google Chrome. Touch the Clear button in order to continue.

Staying private

To stay private, use private browsing or incognito mode. Most of the browsers run a private window beside the stock “internet” browser. This is called Private Browsing in Mozilla Firefox and incognito in Google Chrome. If you browse a site in the private window, it will not be logged by the browser.

Tap the Menu button in your Firefox browser to open private browsing. Now tap “New private tab.” It will open a new private tab with the mask logo that says you are in private browsing mode.
To start with the incognito mode in Google Chrome, the Menu button needs to be tapped on and then tap on the “New incognito mode.”

Install an app locker

You can also install an app locker program if your family and friends often use your phone. It will give you the option to restrict access to the apps that you allow to others. Some of these types of apps are Locker Master, Smart App Lock, AppLock, etc.

You can also delete the history on a regular basis to ensure that your personal information is not lost when the phone is misplaced.

Ways to wipe your entire android device

If you want to sell your old android phone, then knowing how to delete browsing history in android mobile and wiping the data is very important. It will protect your personal data from falling into the hands of others. First, back up the Contact, images, and other important data in another location before you start wiping your phone.

Encrypt your phone before wiping the data because, like the computer, in the android device also the data is not deleted permanently, they get overwritten. So someone with knowledge in this area and with the help of some software can retrieve your data. To prevent such things, encrypting data is important so that nobody can’t access the data even after retrieving using some software. Follow the following steps for that:

Charge your phone completely.
Open Settings Menu on your phone > tap Security section > select Encrypt phone > type in a PIN that you will use to access the encrypted data. Wait for some time as the process may take more than an hour.

Now, come back to the Settings and tap “Backup and reset”. Press the “Factory data reset” option. You will need to enter the encryption PIN. Now the reset process will start. After the reset process is completed, all the data will be erased, you can sell your phone.