How To Clear Your Amazon Search History: An In-Depth Guide

Amazon has over 300 million customer accounts worldwide. If you‘re one of them, chances are you‘ve searched for or purchased items on their ubiquitous ecommerce platform. But what exactly happens to the record of your browsing history?

As it turns out, Amazon retains very extensive data on searches within user accounts. This raises an important question for many shoppers: how can I clear my Amazon search history?

Luckily, the process is straightforward. By following this comprehensive guide, you‘ll learn how to delete your Amazon history in 5 simple steps.

Why Worry About Your Amazon Search History?

Before jumping into the how-to, it‘s reasonable to ask: why would anyone care about their Amazon search history in the first place? As with most things, there are some nuances here.

The Scale of Amazon‘s Data Collection

To start, it helps to understand the sheer scale of Amazon‘s data gathering operation. As the largest ecommerce site worldwide, Amazon has an unrivaled view into the browsing habits and purchase data of over 300 million active customers.

To put that in perspective, that‘s close to the population of the entire United States.

And that tally leaves out the additional 200 million Prime subscribers Amazon also tracks activity on.

With billions of searches performed yearly, Amazon amasses a goldmine of consumer shopping data every single day.

"Amazon has more data than any retailer has ever had in the entire history of the world."

Brittain Ladd, Amazon Strategy Executive

Of course, as a private business Amazon is free to collect this data. But the next logical question is — what do they do with it all?

What Amazon Does With Your Data

Primarily, Amazon uses your browsing history and purchase data to build a more personalized, targeted shopping experience. By understanding your habits and interests, their algorithms can deliver increasingly relevant product suggestions and ads.

There are benefits here. Tailored recommendations can enhance convenience and even delight some loyal customers. However…

The Privacy Concerns

Not all shoppers are comfortable having extensive personal data hoovered up by one of the world‘s largest corporations. And it‘s true — there are some real privacy concerns to consider here.

Data breaches remain a threat even for huge companies like Amazon
Algorithms can make faulty inferences about you based on limited data
Amazon frequently shares data with third-parties
Lack of transparency around how personal data gets used

For these reasons and more, many consumers are bothered by Amazon‘s expansive and somewhat intrusive data gathering practices.

And that leads us back to the techniques below for clearing your Amazon search history.

While Amazon makes it reasonably easy to delete your history, it does require digging into some buried account settings. So let‘s get to it!

Clearing Your Amazon History in 5 Simple Steps

Without further ado, here is the complete walkthrough for how to view your Amazon search history and clear it in just a few clicks.

Step 1: Navigate to Amazon.com and Login

First things first, head on over to Amazon.com and sign in to your account:

If you were already logged in, double check you are still signed into the correct account
This needs to be done on the desktop site – mobile browsers have a different settings layout

Step 2: Access Your Account Settings

With the right Amazon account active, hover over your username in the top right corner. A dropdown menu appears. Select Account to enter your account dashboard.

This is the starting point to access your private account options.

Step 3: Locate Your Search History

From your account dashboard, scroll all the way down and look for a tiny link labeled Browsing History just above the page footer:

This innocuous link contains your full Amazon search record.

Step 4: Delete Your Entire Search History

Upon clicking that link, you‘ll find a complete list of your Amazon browsing history by date. From here, you have two options to purge your history:

A. Remove Individual Items

Click the Remove button located below any individual search result listing to delete only that item.

B. Clear All History

To mass delete everything, click the Manage History drop down and select Remove All Items From View to instantly clear your full history.

Select this nuclear option with care! Once deleted, your entire search record disappears from view.

Step 5: Confirm Deletion

Finally, Amazon will ask you to definitively confirm that you want to erase your browsing history. Select Yes to verify and finish clearing your search data for good.

And with that, your Amazon search history has been successfully purged clean!

Optional Bonus: Turn Off Search History

Want to stop Amazon from recording any new search data? Simply toggle the Turn Browsing History On/Off setting to OFF. Now Amazon will no longer store your future browsing activity.

Key Advantages of Clearing Your History

Now that you know how to clear your Amazon search history, what changes once it‘s actually deleted? Here are some of the main benefits shoppers enjoy:

Enhanced privacy – Amazon no longer retains a log of your personal browsing data
Increased confidentiality – Shared account users can‘t access your private search details
No more creepy ads – Deleted history shuts down tailored advertising and recommendations
Beefed up security – Reduced risk of search data falling into the wrong hands
Peace of mind – Your Amazon activity stays completely anonymous

What Data Remains Visible?

Clearing your browsing history only deletes recorded search queries and clicked item results. Importantly, it does not erase or modify:

Purchase Order History
Shipping Addresses
Payment Options
Prime Membership Status
Shopping Recommendations Based on Past Orders
Other Account Details

These remain fully intact and unaffected even if you delete all search and browsing records.

Comparison to Other Tech Giants

How does Amazon‘s policy compare to other consumer tech leaders when it comes to collecting your data? Here is a breakdown:

Company	Records Search History	Easy to Delete
Amazon	Yes	Yes
Meta/Facebook	Yes	Moderate
Google	Yes	Moderate
Apple	No	N/A

Apple is generally considered the gold standard when it comes to protecting consumer privacy. Facebook and Google also store search histories, but make it more challenging for users to access and delete records.