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Google Translate to only save translation history when you’re signed in

With its Material Theme revamp, Google Translate on the web saw the built-in “History” feature get more prominent placement. An upcoming change will see translation history only appear and be saved when you’re signed in with your Google Account.

All users visiting translate.google.com are being served an “Upcoming changes to history” dialog in the bottom-right corner:

Translation history will soon only be available when you are signed in and will be centrally managed within My Activity. Past history will be cleared during this upgrade, so make sure to save translations you want to remember for ease of access later.

At the moment, tapping “History” slides out a side drawer to browse previous translations you entered. Past entries are saved locally, regardless of whether you’re logged in with Google. This includes the language pairing and the ability to save queries across the mobile apps.

Moving forward, Google Translate will no longer keep a local copy, thus requiring all users to be signed in. This is part of Google wanting to keep a “centrally managed” history that’s saved and synced with My Activity. That’s where all performed actions on Google services, including searches and Assistant queries, already appear.

The company today does not specify when “past history will be cleared,” and advises that you “save translations you want to remember for ease of access later” by starring. It’s not clear how many people use Translate while signed out or require a local history capability.

More about Google Translate:

H/T Dylan

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Avatar for Abner Li Abner Li

Editor-in-chief. Interested in the minutiae of Google and Alphabet. Tips/talk: abner@9to5g.com