Privacy Policy

YouTube · agreement dated October 1, 2026 · Official agreement

Read the agreement

2 of 160 cards in Retention & Deletion

Retention & Deletion · Company practice

Retention varies: until you delete it, auto-deleted or anonymized after a set period, until account deletion, or longer

Google retains the data it collects for different periods depending on what it is, how it is used and how you configure your settings. Some data you can delete whenever you like, such as your personal info and the content you create or upload like photos and documents; you can also delete activity information saved in your account or choose to have it deleted automatically after a set period, and Google keeps that data in your account until you remove it or choose to have it removed. Other data is deleted or anonymized automatically after a set period, such as advertising data in server logs. Some data is kept until you delete your Google Account, such as information about how often you use its services. And some data is retained for longer when necessary for legitimate business or legal purposes, such as security, fraud and abuse prevention, or financial record-keeping.

Supporting quotations

Retaining your information
We retain the data we collect for different periods of time depending on what it is, how we use it, and how you configure your settings:
Some data you can delete whenever you like, such as your
after a set period of time. We’ll keep this data in your Google Account until you remove it or choose to have it removed.
Other data is deleted or anonymized automatically after a set period of time, such as advertising data in server logs.
We keep some data until you delete your Google Account, such as information about how often you use our services.
And some data we retain for longer periods of time when necessary for legitimate business or legal purposes, such as security, fraud and abuse prevention, or financial record-keeping.

Qualifications & exceptions

  • Deletable-anytime data stays until you remove it or set auto-delete; the set periods for auto-deletion and anonymization are not stated here.
  • Longer retention applies when Google judges it necessary for legitimate business or legal purposes.

Not stated here

  • Specific retention periods are not stated in this document; a linked retention page is referenced but not supplied.

Cross-references

Retention & Deletion · Company practice

Deleted data is removed or kept only anonymized, with possible delays before copies leave active and backup systems

When you delete data, Google follows a deletion process meant to ensure the data is safely and completely removed from its servers or retained only in anonymized form. Because Google tries to protect information from accidental or malicious deletion, there may be delays between when you delete something and when copies are deleted from its active and backup systems. Google points to a page with more about its retention periods, including how long deletion takes; that page is not part of this source.

Supporting quotations

When you delete data, we follow a deletion process to make sure that your data is safely and completely removed from our servers or retained only in anonymized form. We try to ensure that our services protect information from accidental or malicious deletion. Because of this, there may be delays between when you delete something and when copies are deleted from our active and backup systems.
You can read more about Google’s data retention periods, including how long it takes us to delete your information.

Qualifications & exceptions

  • Deleted data may be retained in anonymized form rather than removed.
  • Delays are stated as possible and are not quantified here.

Not stated here

  • The referenced data retention periods page, including deletion timing, is not supplied.

Cross-references