Your iPhone history is used to make things easier for you, but if you’re worried about someone seeing something they shouldn’t, you can easily clear your iPhone’s history to preserve your privacy.
You can easily clear your iPhone’s history by following these steps. The process varies depending on the type of history you want to clear, such as Safari browsing history, Chrome browsing history, or call history.
To clear Safari browsing history, open the Settings app. You’ll be clearing your Safari browsing history and cookies from the Settings app, not from the Safari app. In the future, you can use Safari’s Private Browsing mode to visit websites without saving them to your history. Scroll down and tap Apps if you’re on iOS 18. Then, scroll down and tap Safari. Tap Clear History and Website Data. This option is under the “History and Website Data” header. If this button is grayed out, there’s either no history saved or the option is restricted in Screen Time. You can re-enable Clear History and Website Data in Settings > Screen Time > Content & Privacy Restrictions > Web Content by disabling all website restrictions. Choose the timeframe of when to clear your history. You can choose the last hour, today, today and yesterday, or all of your browsing history. If you want to close all of your tabs when clearing your history, toggle the Close All Tabs option. Tap Clear History. Your Safari browsing history, cache, and cookies will be deleted. Your browsing history will also be deleted on any other devices you are signed into with your iCloud account. Your AutoFill information will not be deleted.
If you use Chrome on your iPhone, you can clear the browsing history from within the Chrome app itself. Open the Chrome app. Tap the button with three horizontal dots. Tap Delete Browsing Data. Choose the time range. You can delete your browsing history from the last 15 minutes, the last hour, the last 24 hours, the last 7 days, the last 4 weeks, or all time. Choose the browsing data to delete. You can choose your browsing history, tabs, cookies and site data, cached images and files, saved passwords, and autofill data. Tap Delete data. This will delete all of your selected browsing data. Note that this will also delete the Google Chrome browsing data for any synced devices.
To clear Firefox browsing history, tap the button with three horizontal lines. Tap History. Tap the trash can icon in the bottom-left corner. Choose a time frame. You can choose the last hour, today, today and yesterday, or everything. Once you tap will immediately will immediately delete your browsing history and cookies. Firefox will also delete the history on devices synced with your iPhone.
You can also clear your Google app search history. Open the Google app. Tap the profile button. Tap Search history. Tap Delete. Select a time range. If you want to delete the entire history, select “Delete all time.” Select Google products. Check the boxes next to the Google products you want to delete your history from. Then click Next. Tap Delete. This will confirm the deletion of your Google search history.
To clear call history, open the Phone app. Tap the Recents tab. Tap Edit in the upper-left corner. Tap Select in the drop-down menu. Tap Clear to delete all of the entries at once. If you want to delete the whole list, tap “Clear” in the upper-right corner. All of the entries in the Recents tab will be deleted. If you just want to delete a single entry, tap the red minus sign next to the call you want to clear.
To delete text message conversations, open the Messages app. Tap the button Edit. Tap Select Messages. Select each conversation that you want to delete. Tap the checkbox for each conversation that you want to remove. Tap Delete after selecting conversations. All of the selected conversations will be deleted without confirmation. If you’re signed in to another device using the same Apple ID, your iMessage history will be cleared from that device as well. You can also change your message history settings to only keep messages for a year or for 30 days.
To clear Siri history, open the Settings app. Tap Siri. Tap Siri & Dictation History. Tap Delete Siri & Dictionary History and confirm. This clears your Siri history.
If you want to get rid of words added to your iPhone’s autocorrect dictionary, open the Settings app. Select General. Tap Transfer or Reset iPhone. Tap Reset. Tap Reset Keyboard Dictionary. You’ll be asked to confirm. All of the custom words and shortcuts that you have saved will be deleted.
If you want to completely erase your iPhone, use the Erase All Content and Settings option. Open the Settings app. Tap General. Tap Transfer or Reset iPhone. Tap Erase All Content and Settings. You’ll be asked to confirm that you want to completely delete everything. You may need to enter your Apple ID password or iPhone passcode. This will restore your device to the factory settings, deleting all of the information and settings. Once the reset is complete, you’ll be taken through the initial setup. You can set up your iPhone as new, or restore an iTunes or iCloud backup.
Regularly clearing your iPhone’s history across various apps helps maintain your privacy and can also free up storage space. Consider enabling private browsing modes in Safari and Chrome for future sessions to prevent history from being saved automatically.
Clearing your iPhone’s history is crucial for maintaining personal privacy and security. Whether it’s browsing history, call logs, messages, or Siri interactions, this data can reveal sensitive information about your activities. Regularly deleting this information ensures that your personal details remain confidential, especially if your device is accessed by others.
Beyond privacy, managing your iPhone’s history can also improve performance. Accumulated data can consume significant storage space and potentially slow down your device. Periodically clearing these histories helps free up valuable storage, leading to a smoother and more efficient iPhone experience.
