Google Chrome will soon let you delete your last 15 minutes of browsing history on Android [U]

Ben Schoon | Mar 20 2023 - 8:29 am PT

Google Chrome for Android in the Play Store

Sometime in the not-too-distant future it appears Google Chrome for Android will be making it much easier to delete your browsing history, with a quick option to delete 15 minutes of history.

In 2021, Google introduced the ability to purge 15 minutes of account history through the Google app, functionality that came to Android in the first few months of 2022. The handy option allowed users to purge their search history along with other account activity instantly, instead of digging through their account settings.

Now, it appears Google is planning to bring similar functionality to Google Chrome for Android, with the ability to delete 15 minutes of browsing history.

A new flag in Google Chrome for Android spotted by ChromeStory will enable a feature that will allow users to “quickly delete their last 15 mins of data.” The flag doesn’t specify if this is just browsing data or account activity as a whole, but it does mention that the option will appear in the three-dots overflow menu in Chrome.

When enabled, a new quick delete option appears in the three dots menu allowing users to quickly delete their last 15 mins of data.

When this feature might debut remains to be seen, but it certainly sounds like a handy option for sensitive browsing. It’s unclear if the option would also later appear in Chrome for iOS or desktop.

Update 3/20: Google has continued progress on this feature, with the option to delete 15 minutes of browsing history now appearing in the latest version of Chrome for Android.

Highlighted by TechDows and since confirmed in our own testing, turning on the “Enable quick delete” option in chrome://flags adds a “Delete last 15 minutes” button to the overflow menu in Chrome for Android. On pressing that, a confirmation page will appear that confirms browsing history, cookies/site data, and cached images/files will be deleted.

Currently, though, the feature is only available in Chrome Canary, tied to version 113. It’s still not clear when it will released to the general public.