How to delete your Bing search history?

Your Bing search history is used to personalize your search results. Each search you make is added to your search history so that Bing can learn to show you the search results you actually like. Follow the step-by-step instructions below to clear your Bing search history and your Microsoft activity.

1. Learn why your search history is saved and decide whether you want to see personalized search results on Bing.
2. Open your Bing search history.
3. Clear your search history on Bing.
4. Stop Bing from using your search history to display targeted ads.
5. Clear your activity from other Microsoft products.

What is Bing?

Bing is a search engine owned by Microsoft, and is the default search engine installed on the Microsoft Edge browser in Windows. You can also set Bing to be your default search engine in your desktop's browser and on your mobile devices. It's equivalent to Google, but because it has it's own search index and ranking process, you may find you get very different search results!

Why Bing saves your search history

All of the major search engines save your search history. Based on your previous searches on Bing, you'll see results that are hopefully more accurate. It is also used to make the Bing search suggestions more accurate. Of course, your search history is also used to show you ads for products you may be interested in. Bing records your searches in your history even if you aren't logged in - they use your IP address to deliver your results, and can correlate this to either your account, or the device you are using. Additionally, cookies are stored on your device to save your Bing  preferences, which are also accessible any time you search on Bing.

Why would you want to delete your old Bing searches?

If you aren't comfortable with Bing using your search history to display results and advertisements.

See your search history on Bing

1.  Go to www.bing.com.
2. Click on the three horizontal lines in the top right corner to open the menu, then click on Search history.

You'll see your recent searches displayed under a few settings. This makes it easy to repeat a search - this feature is definitely useful when you have a complex topic you are researching!

Stop your Bing searches being used in suggestions

If you don't want your search history to be used by Bing to offer you search suggestions, click on the checkbox next to Recent searches to deselect it.

How to clear your Bing search history

It's easy to delete your previous searches on Bing. Note that clearing your search history does not clear the cookies in your browser, and doesn't stop Bing from saving any searching you do in the future.

1. Open your search history following the steps above, or go to https://www.bing.com/profile/history/delete.
2. Click Yes when Bing asks you to confirm that you want to clear your history.

   

Stop Bing from using your search history for ads

You can turn off some of the personalization options and prevent Bing from using your search history to display targeted ads.

1. Go to https://account.microsoft.com/privacy/ad-settings.
2. If you are not logged in, scroll down the page until you find the section See personalized ads in your browser. Click the toggle button and set it to Off to disable this.

   

3. If you are logged into your Microsoft account, there is an additional setting at the top of the page. Toggle the button to Off under the section See ads that interest you to stop Bing from using your Microsoft activity to personalize ads.

   

Clear your other Microsoft activity

If you want to clear all of your Microsoft activity, not just your Bing search history, you can do that from your accounts' Privacy settings.

1. Go to https://account.microsoft.com/privacy/activity-history.
2. You'll see a long page with your Microsoft applications in a column on the right, and various filters on the left. Go ahead and click the blue Clear link for all of the applications where you want to clear your activity.

   

Looking for an alternative to Bing?

How to use Dogpile as an alternative to Bing

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