Google’s offering of dozens of free web apps is what makes it a popular choice among many users. Like any big internet corporation, however, these apps and accounts have access to any personal information you share on there. In this guide we’ll point out some setting you can check on to take control of just what information is shared with them.

Account Settings You Should Check

From your google account, click on your account picture or icon. From there, you should see an option called “Manage your Google Account”. Now, navigate to each setting described below and feel free to implement any of our recommendations. You can also customize this according to your individual needs.

Home

Look for any flags here, including any security issues found. Google has a nice walkthrough process that helps you correct anything they’ll point out to you on here.

Personal Info

Now is a great time to make sure any information you have here is correct, so that you can recover your account more easily in case you lose access to it. You can also control how much or how little you put here.

Data & Personalization

We recommend taking their Privacy Checkup that Google provides. You can also adjust the settings in here according to what you want.

Security

Two-factor identification is a recommended security feature on any website where you have sensitive data stored. Turning this on will mean logging in is slightly more inconvenient, but makes it incredibly difficult for anyone to hack into your account, as they’d also need access to whatever you set as your second factor.

Finally, look through any devices you have listed here and remove any you no longer use or don’t recognize.