Google Translate begins saving users' search histories to their accounts
Google told its Translate users about an upcoming policy change in 2020 that may finally be taking place only now in 2022. And believe it or not, this isn’t the first time the company was fashionably late to its own party.
A couple of Februaries ago, we reported on a warning prompt users were seeing on Translate, telling them that search history on the service would “soon” only be available for those logged into their Google account. Prior to then, users could save individual searches to individual devices which was good for privacy, but not so good for continuity across platforms.
And then we didn’t hear a word about it for a couple years, as one normally does about an important change like this.
That was until yesterday when we began collecting tips from our Android Police readers about this new prompt telling users to either back up their Translate search history to their Google account, manage their activity logging, or continue using Translate without an account. Users can also temporarily use the app without an account by hitting their account avatar at the top-right corner, then hit the down arrow next to their account information to switch it up.
If users want to sync their search history to the cloud, they’ll need to make sure that the Web & App Activity control setting is turned on in their Google account settings. Cloud synced Translate histories sync every few hours, so locally-recorded histories remain local and up-to-date. You can check outthis help pagefor more information.
Speaking of those account settings, it took about two months afterGoogle announced wider user-controlled auto-delete policiesbefore users actually started to see them.
Thanks: Nick, Moshe, 4cm4k1, Mishaal
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