Deleted Gemini Chat Still Shows in My Activity? Here’s Why
You delete a conversation in Gemini. It vanishes from the sidebar. Then you open My Activity and there it is, still listed by name. Or the reverse: you wipe your Gemini activity and the sidebar still shows the same chats. It is the difference between two surfaces that overlap but are not the same thing — and it is not obvious. Gemini Apps Community threads ask how to get back chats deleted from the chat list but still viewable in Gemini activity, or why settings mention 72 hours while activity is deleted after 36 months.
The two places your Gemini history lives
1. The chat list in the Gemini app. The sidebar at gemini.google.com (and the Recent list on Android and iOS) — conversations you can reopen and continue.
2. Gemini Apps Activity in your Google Account. The record Google stores. Per Google’s Gemini Apps Privacy Hub, “Your chats and what you share with Gemini (like files, videos, screens, and photos) will be saved in your Activity.” Reach it via Settings & help → Activity or at myactivity.google.com/product/gemini — both routes are documented on Manage & delete your activity in Gemini Apps.
What deletes what
| Action | Chat list in the app | Gemini Apps Activity |
|---|---|---|
| Delete a chat in the Gemini sidebar | Removed | Google documents that the related activity is deleted too |
| Delete activity in My Activity (All time / Last day / Custom range) | Reload before judging; Google does not document this direction in the same words | Removed for the range you picked |
| Auto-delete period (3 / 18 / 36 months) | Old chats age out | Activity older than the period is deleted |
| Keep Activity turned off | Future chats are not kept as activity | Future chats do not appear; still saved 72 hours |
| Bulk delete extension | Deletes the chats you selected | Not touched by the extension itself |
Scenario: deleted in the app, still in My Activity
Google’s own documentation says these move together. On Find & manage your recent chats in Gemini Apps it states that deleting a chat in pinned and recent chats “also deletes any content created in that chat (like Canvas docs and apps) and the related activity from Gemini Apps Activity.” So if an entry survives, work through this list:
- Same account? With several Google Accounts signed in, the Gemini tab and the My Activity tab can be showing different ones. Check the avatar in both.
- Reload My Activity. Google does not publish a propagation time for deletions, so we will not invent one — refresh and look again.
- Was the chat actually deleted? A long sidebar loads more entries as you scroll; a conversation scrolled out of view is not a deleted one.
- Work or school account? Google states that then “your Gemini Apps Activity is controlled by your Google Workspace administrator and you can’t delete chats.”
If the entry survives all that, delete it in My Activity directly — the authoritative view of what your account has stored. It can delete All your Gemini Apps activity via “All time”, the last hour or day, a custom range, or single items.
Scenario: deleted in My Activity, still in the sidebar
This direction is the one Google’s help pages do not spell out in the same plain sentence. Treat the sidebar as a view holding what it loaded earlier: reload gemini.google.com and look again. If conversations are still listed and still open normally, delete them in the app too — that operation is documented to clear the related activity with it. For doing that at scale, see our companion guide, How to delete all Gemini chats.
Chats that disappear on their own
Sometimes nothing was deleted by you at all. Google’s Privacy Hub states: “Your activity is auto-deleted after 18 months. You can change this to 3 or 36 months, or choose not to auto-delete.” So a year-and-a-half-old conversation vanishing is the default setting working as designed. The control sits on the Gemini Apps Activity page.
One retention rule survives deletion. Google states that “Chats reviewed by human reviewers (and related data like your language, device type, location info, or feedback) are not deleted when you delete your activity. Instead, they are retained for up to three years.” Nothing you click in either interface changes that, which is a good reason not to paste secrets into any assistant in the first place.
What happens when Gemini Apps Activity is off
Turning off Keep Activity does not mean nothing is stored. Google’s wording: “Your future chats won’t appear in your Activity, and won’t be used to train our AI models”, but “Future chats are still saved for 72 hours so Gemini can respond to you, process your feedback, and protect Google, its users, and the public.” That 72-hour window is behind a lot of the confusion: activity is off, yet something is still kept briefly. Turning the setting off also does not remove what was saved before — past activity has to be deleted explicitly.
Where a bulk delete extension fits
Bulk Delete Chats for Gemini is a Chrome extension we make. It adds the
middle option the app is missing: tick a set of conversations — filtered by title, or all
of them — and delete them in one paced, cancellable run. Each deletion goes to
Gemini’s own endpoint from the page using your existing session, one per second, and
stops the moment you cancel. It asks for the storage permission only, runs on
the Gemini web app and nowhere else, and never reads or uploads your conversation
contents.
What it does not do, plainly: the extension deletes conversations in the Gemini app. It does not manage entries in My Activity, does not change your auto-delete period, and does not alter Google’s retention policy. It performs the same delete action the app performs, so whatever Google does to the related activity is Google’s behaviour, not ours. For a clean account record rather than a clean sidebar, My Activity is where you finish the job.
Unofficial; not affiliated with Google.
FAQ
I deleted a Gemini chat but it still shows in My Activity — why?
Google documents deleting a chat as one action that also removes the related activity: its help page for recent chats says that deleting a chat in pinned and recent chats also deletes any content created in that chat and the related activity from Gemini Apps Activity. If an entry is still listed, check that you are viewing My Activity in the same Google Account, reload the page, and confirm the chat is really gone from the sidebar rather than only scrolled out of view. Google does not publish a propagation time, so if the entry stays, delete it directly at myactivity.google.com/product/gemini.
Does deleting Gemini Apps Activity remove chats from my sidebar?
My Activity is the record Google keeps in your account, and its delete controls cover all your Gemini Apps activity, the last hour or day, or a custom range. Google’s help pages document the app-to-activity direction explicitly but not the reverse in the same words, so treat the sidebar as a view that may need a reload before it catches up. If a conversation is still listed and openable in Gemini afterwards, delete it in the app as well.
Does a bulk delete extension clear My Activity too?
Bulk Delete Chats for Gemini deletes conversations in the Gemini web app by sending the same delete request the site sends when you delete a chat yourself. It has no access to My Activity, does not change your auto-delete period, and cannot alter Google’s retention policy. The Gemini Apps Activity page remains the place to verify and manage what your account has stored.
Retention rules and interface wording change over time. Everything above is quoted from Google’s help pages as published at the time of writing; before you rely on it, open Google’s Gemini Apps Privacy Hub and check the current text.