What you need to know
- Google Assistant will sometimes hear commands not intended for it, but even these commands get added to your search history.
- Google added a new command that will stop Assistant mid-sentence and delete the entire query from your search history.
- Additional privacy commands can be used to control search history through normal, everyday speech.
While your Google Assistant is always-on and always-listening on certain devices, it's not designed to respond or log commands unless you say "OK Google" or "Hey Google". If you've got any smart home product from Google, like a Nest Hub or a Nest Mini, you've likely experienced a few times where your Google Assistant will start blabbing off some response to a command you never issued.
Thanks to a handy new command that was found by Droid-Life, a simple natural language command can fix these erroneous commands. Next time you hear Google spouting something off that you didn't ask, simply say "Hey Google, that wasn't for you", and your Google Assistant will not only stop speaking immediately, but it will also completely delete the command from your search history.
Google has been recently adding in more quality-of-life commands to Google Assistant, both on dedicated devices like Nest Hubs as well as the Google Assistant built into your phone. Recently, Google added the ability for the next-generation Assistant, found on the Pixel 4, to control common functions on the Chrome web browser, such as opening new tabs or navigating forward and backward. You can even control Hulu with your Google Assistant now, too!
Not a big fan of Google logging everything you do, or did you just make a bad search and don't want it affecting your history? We've got lots of guides on how to better secure your Google account and safeguard your privacy, including deleting your Google Maps history and automatically removing the vast amounts of personal data your phone stores.
