Clearing the History of Bing Searches – Step by Step

5 min
bing search history bar

Bing is one of Microsoft’s most resourceful creations. To provide top answers to people’s questions, it continuously improves by crunching enormous amounts of data. Information is gathered from the users for the intelligent algorithms to learn from. But what about your privacy? You’re entitled to clear Bing search history at any given moment. Let’s see how it’s done.

How to delete Bing search history

Bing search history is a part of your privacy. It’s like your other digital possessions: photos, files, and apps. Therefore, you should have all the authority to clear Bing searches. Here’s how to do it.

Open Bing and click the top-right hamburger menu to display a list of actions. Choose Search history.

On the next screen, you can browse through your activities. Here are the options Bing gives you to clear the search history:

  • one by one – click a trash bin icon that pops up when you hover over an item;
  • many at a time – select and delete from Bing history with the ‘Clear’ button;
  • all found items – tick the left box of the Activity search bar to select all of them;
  • to delete all Bing search history, tap the ‘Clear all’ button and confirm your choice.

Clear all history from the Microsoft privacy dashboard

Here’s a different approach. The main page of your Microsoft account presents you with various settings sections, including Privacy. It has a link to a separate privacy dashboard. Here’s proof that Microsoft respects its users. Before proceeding, the system may demand to verify your identity, for example by sending a security code via email. It’s an additional precaution in case of unauthorized access.

The privacy dashboard is divided into categories, including Search history. Use it to clear Bing history of searches one item at a time or all at once. This tool allows you to browse, manage, archive, and download your activity data from many Microsoft services, as well as configure your privacy settings in many products.

Bing Images search history delete

Bing strives to balance its multitude of possibilities with an intuitive interface. The mentioned hamburger menu is unified across several services. You can go to Search history settings from Bing Travel, Bing Maps, or Bing Images to clear the history of your searches:

Thus, Bing allows you to revisit your searches. That’s useful if you’ve forgotten the name of the thing you were looking for two days ago but need to search for it again now. This brings a neat trick with Image Search. As you probably know, you can use the Visual Search service to query the Web by pictures, not words. Just click the camera icon on the search bar. You can browse for an image file or drag and drop it. In your search history, it is listed as ‘Image-based search’ and you can view it or delete it with Bing history. So Bing search behaves like a gallery, saving pictures for you.

Bing history – clear all history on Android

First, erasing history on Android’s browsers. To clear Bing search history on Edge, Chrome, or Firefox mobile, start by tapping the Bing settings hamburger menu. It’s in the top right corner, just like on the desktop version.

Guessing the rest? Bingo! The insights are presented just like on desktops, only adjusted for touchscreens. You can review your search history and delete it at will.

Another way to use Bing on mobile is via the mobile app. To clear the search history on it, tap the Account icon in the top left corner of the Home tab. Choose the Settings item on the list and browse through your searches!

How to clear Bing search history on iPhone

As mentioned, Bing makes its interfaces intuitive and unified across many systems. Its iOS app follows that pattern. To access settings, tap the menu icon on the home screen. There you can find the History section to view and clear Bing history. In the browser for iPhone, this is as simple as it can be because mobile browsers are also unified on different devices – just follow the tips for Android above.

How to delete Bing search history without signing in

If you’re signed in, your search data is tied to your Microsoft account. Admittedly, it’s convenient to stay logged in. The platform can store your activities across many devices, regardless if they’re yours, borrowed, or public. If you sign out, the activity gets associated with a specific browser or app instead. Then your search history will get spread across several browsers on your laptop, your smartphone app, and your friend’s tablet he lent you when your battery died. All these pieces are separate and inaccessible from one point. You might not care until you wish to find something in such a mess.

So, a little advice if you use someone else’s device without logging in and leave any searches in Bing history: clear all the history! You can do this exactly as described above, starting from Bing’s main menu. Alternatively, use the incognito window. Browsers also call it InPrivate or Private mode. Your activity performed from within it is wiped upon quitting. This is how the local Bing search history is deleted.

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