Here's how to disable itActivity history is already in Windows, and you might want to disable it if you're worried about privacy.
Microsoft has been living a bit of a PR nightmare since it announced Copilot+ PCs a few weeks ago. Many users are concerned for their privacy, since the Recall feature revolves around remembering everything you do on your PC so you can easily go back in time to what you were doing previously. The company addressed those concerns with a recent update, but here's something you may not know: Windows is probably already tracking everything you do.
Unbeknownst to most people, Windows already includes a feature called activity tracking. In Windows 10, this capability was used to enable the Timeline feature, which was essentially a dumber, less capable version of Recall. But even though this feature was removed in Windows 11, activity tracking is still there and on by default. So here's how to disable it.
How to disable activity history in Windows 11Thankfully, disabling activity history in Windows 11 is relatively simple. here's what you need to do:
1. Open the Settings app (you can find it in the Start menu).
2. Click
Privacy & security in the menu on the left.
a. On Windows 10, select
Privacy from the main menu screen.
3. Choose
Activity history.
4. Turn the toggle
Off for
Store my activity history on this device (or uncheck the box on Windows 10).
5. Also click
Clear history to clear recent data that was already collected if the option is available.
After this, your activity history will no longer be tracked on your PC. You'll need to do this for every new PC you use, though, since it's enabled by default.
Keep your privacy strongDisabling activity history should have no negative impact on your experience in Windows 11, considering it was only ever used for the Timeline feature, which is not available here. Even on Windows 10, Timeline has become far less useful since it no longer syncs data across devices. And to be fair, it might not even be a big deal since, again, this data isn't synced online. But if you're worried about Recall in Copilot+, that's not much different from this.
Even if you disable this feature, there are a few more ways Microsoft can collect data about you through Windows, and you may want to look into other privacy settings. We have a guide on how to make Windows 11 more private, if you'd like more information on that.
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