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Wired

If you're worried about your digital privacy, here's how to delete old messages

Wired
Summary
Nutrition label

66% Informative

Your long-forgotten digital footprint could be more revealing and sensitive than you realize.

Chats are a good place to start your digital decluttering.

You probably have a digital attic full of old data that you can delete or download and save offline.

If you're worried about possible expansions of government surveillance and access to your information, there are a few concrete steps to protect your privacy.

Gchat was fully integrated with Gmail and wasn't a separate platform.

After May 2013 , Google migrated Gchat users to Hangouts , and that history has come forward into what is now Google Chat .

To find them now, open Gmail and search for the phrase in:chats (using no quotation marks) Hundreds or thousands of chats from May 2013 and earlier may pop up.

VR Score

54

Informative language

46

Neutral language

58

Article tone

informal

Language

English

Language complexity

46

Offensive language

not offensive

Hate speech

not hateful

Attention-grabbing headline

not detected

Known propaganda techniques

not detected

Time-value

long-living

Affiliate links

no affiliate links