Google updates Search Services History to include media for AI training

Google just flipped another switch on your data, and this time it’s not just your search queries at stake. The company has begun rolling out a restructured privacy setting called Search Services History that, by default, saves user-uploaded media, including images, audio recordings, and files, for the explicit purpose of training its generative AI models.

If you had Web & App Activity turned on before (most people do), the new “Save Media” toggle is already enabled for you. In English: Google is now collecting the photos you upload to Lens, the voice clips you record in Translate, and the files you share through Search, and feeding them into its AI training pipeline unless you manually opt out.

What Google is actually collecting

The scope here goes well beyond your typical “we save your search history” disclosure. Search Services History spans Google Search, Lens, Translate, Maps, and Shopping. The media it captures includes Google Lens images, Search Live voice recordings, Translate speaking practice audio, and uploaded files you interact with through any of these services.

Google says the data used for AI model training is anonymized and decoupled from individual user accounts. The retention period stretches up to four years. Human review of your media requires separate consent, which is a small but meaningful guardrail.

If you previously opted out of Web & App Activity, that decision does not automatically carry over to the new Search Services History setting. Users who thought they’d already locked down their privacy preferences now need to go back in and manually adjust choices under this freshly minted control panel.

The rollout started in June 2026 and will continue over the coming months.

The default problem

By making Save Media opt-out rather than opt-in, Google is essentially guaranteeing that most of its billions of users will contribute media to AI training without ever making a conscious decision to do so. The four-year retention window means that even if you opt out today, content you’ve already shared could remain in training datasets until 2030.

If you want to opt out, you’ll need to navigate to your Google Account settings, find Search Services History, and uncheck the Save Media box. You can also disable Search Services History entirely.

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