When you’re jumping between the many different apps Google offers—Gmail, Google Maps, Google Calendar, YouTube, and all the rest—you may not be giving much thought to the Google account that underpins them all or to the myriad settings you can access that help to define your experience across all these apps.
If you’ve never opened up your Google account page on the web or on your phone, there are a host of options to browse through there. They cover everything from data security and browsing history to the backup email Google needs in case you ever get locked out of your account.
Here we’re going to focus on seven of the lesser-known settings: the ones that don’t necessarily get a lot of attention but which are still an important part of how your account and your Google apps operate. It’s worth spending a few minutes to review these and to make sure they’re set up in the way you’d like.
Also pause to consider how much personal information you want to share with Google, or how much of your information you’re making visible on the web. Let your own level of comfort guide your decisions on how you tweak these settings.
The starting point for all these settings is your Google account page on the web.
Set Your Home and Work Addresses
Google will use the information about where you live and work to personalize your experience. This is most useful in Google Maps, because it means you can get directions back home or to your office with a single tap rather than typing in the address each time. (You should see Home and Work shortcuts appear whenever you search for a destination.)
There are benefits for getting more accurate weather forecasts and more relevant search results too. The usual Google privacy policy rules apply: No one else will see the address information you’ve saved, but you might start seeing more ads for sandwich shops in your local area.
To set these addresses from your Google account page, click Personal info and then either Home address or Work address. You can either type out the address manually, or select a location on a map.
Edit Your Google Profile Information
Settings for your Google Profile Information
Courtesy of David Nield
You may not think about your Google account in the same way as a Facebook or Instagram profile, but Google does share bits of information about you with other people. If you send someone an email through Gmail, they can click on your profile photo and see whatever’s public on your Google account page. Similarly, if you leave a review on Google Maps, the viewers of that review can tap on your name or picture and see any public information on your Google account page.
To set what people can see, click Data & privacy and then Profile. You can include a variety of information here, from a profile picture to web links (pointing towards your social media accounts, for example). Next to each piece of information is a symbol indicating if it’s public (an icon showing two people) or private (a padlock icon).
Click on any entry in the list to make changes and to change the visibility settings.
Designate Recovery Contacts
Recovery contacts are the people who you and Google can turn to if you ever get locked out of your account. As a safety net, this works pretty well. Recovery contacts can vouch that you are who you say you are, and a real person is harder to hack or spoof than a password or a PIN code.
To set or change your recovery contacts, choose Security & sign-in > Recovery contacts. Your chosen people will get a notification in their email inbox, and will need to follow a link to agree to having your back—just so Google knows these are actually people you know. (You should tell them you’re doing this in advance).
Customize the Types of Ads You See
See if Google’s ad technology has profiled you correctly.
Courtesy of David Nield
Targeted advertising is an inescapable consequence of using all the free apps and services Google makes available, but you can take more control over the sorts of ads you see than you might have realized.
From Data & privacy, select My Ad Center, and you can tweak the types of ads Google and its partners serve up to you. For categories such as your professional industry, relationships, and home ownership, for example, you can turn ads on or off.
Click Customize Ads to make further changes. There are three tabs here—Topics, Brands, and Sensitive (subjects like alcohol or gambling)—and on each tab you can view the ads you’ve seen lately and adjust what you’re shown in the future.
If you’re into your tech, for example, then under Brands you might see Samsung—and you might get served ads for Samsung products. If you’d rather this didn’t happen, click the – (minus) button, and you’ll see fewer Samsung ads going forward.
Bear in mind that this doesn’t change the volume of ads you actually see; you can’t remove advertising from Google’s products this way. You can, however, manage the topics of the ads that appear.
Save Contacts Automatically (or Don’t)
You’ll come into contact with a lot of people through Google’s various apps and services, and Google can save these people into your contacts list automatically. To turn this on or off, head to People & sharing and select Contact info saved from interactions.
Sometimes it can be helpful in tracking down a person you remember being in touch with even though you never explicitly saved their details, and at other times it can mean you end up with a contacts list that’s too cluttered—so adjust this as you prefer.
Sign Out of Old Devices
Sign out of devices you’re no longer using.
Courtesy of David Nield
If you’ve used a few phones, tablets, and computers over the years, then you want to minimize the risk of anyone else getting ahold of those devices and finding themselves logged in to your Google account. Presumably you wiped old devices before selling them or giving them to someone else, but it’s best to be safe.
Click Security & sign in, scroll down the page, and you get a rundown of the devices that are currently connected to your Google account. Select Manage all devices to see the full list. If you see anything that you no longer use regularly, click on it and choose Sign out.
If you remove something you are still using by mistake, all you’ll have to do is sign back into your Google account on that device.
Delete Your Web Activity Automatically
Google collects plenty of data on its users, but you can have your collected data automatically wiped on a regular basis. Choose Data & privacy and then Web & App Activity, and you’ll see an Auto-delete option. You can have this data automatically wiped from your account after three months, 18 months, or 36 months.
The page you’re on will tell you what activity this covers. Typically, it includes data such as your web searches, the apps you’ve installed, the places you’ve been to on Google Maps, and what you’ve been reading on Google News.
All of this data is used to customize Google’s services (and the ads you see) so if you delete it, you’ll get a less personalized experience across Google’s apps. You’ll also be minimizing the digital trail you’re leaving behind you.
