How to delete Amazon Alexa records for privacy

Amazon gadgets like the Echo save a copy of anything you ask Alexa. This means that there is a whole collection of recorded voice recordings for every request or command you gave to Amazon’s voice assistant.

Amazon says Alexa doesn’t start recording until she thinks you’ve said the wake word (the default is “Alexa”), so she doesn’t listen all the time. But sometimes it uses a small sample of voice recordings to train the voice assistant to perform better, which means that in rare cases, humans can look at those recordings to understand if Alexa misinterpreted a request.

If you use Amazon Alexa a lot, it is worth knowing how to prevent her from saving those recordings or using them for training. This is what you do.

There are several ways to view your Amazon Alexa voice history. I prefer to use the Alexa app on my phone since it’s always in my pocket, but you can also visit the Amazon website. Here’s what to do on your phone:

• Download the Alexa app for iPhone or Android.
• Open the Alexa app.
• Tap “More” at the bottom right.
• Tap “Activity”.
• Choose the “Voice History” tab at the top.
• Next to “View” choose “All History” and “All Devices”.

You will now see a list of everything Alexa has recorded. Browse them to play a clip of the audio that Alexa recorded.

The easiest way to delete everything at once is to just say “Alexa, delete everything I said”. You can change this to “Alexa, delete what I just said” to delete the last question you asked, or “Alexa, delete everything I said today” to delete everything you said in one day.

However, there is one bonus setting you should be aware of. You can also set Alexa to automatically delete everything after a certain time. I have mine configured to delete anything older than 3 months. To configure this:

• Download the Alexa app for iPhone or Android.
• Open the Alexa app.
• Tap “More” at the bottom right.
• Tap “Settings”
• Choose “Alexa Privacy”
• Tap “Manage your Alexa data”
• Change the setting under “Choose how long to save recordings” according to the desired period of time, indefinitely, for 18 months, for 3 months or never.

Finally, you can prevent your recordings from being used by Amazon to train Alexa. Amazon claims that “only a very small fraction of voice recordings are reviewed manually” and that if you turn it off, “voice recognition and new features may not work well for you.”

I have disabled it and it works fine. You might also want to remove it. To do this:

• Download the Alexa app for iPhone or Android.
• Open the Alexa app.
• Tap “More” at the bottom right.
• Tap “Settings”
• Choose “Alexa Privacy”
• Tap “Manage your Alexa data”
• Scroll down and turn off the toggle under “Help improve Alexa.”
• Make sure the toggle buttons at the bottom for family members (if you’ve linked them to your account) are also disabled.