How to Clear Bing Search History on Every Device (2026 Guide)

Clearing your Bing search history is a two-step job, and most guides skip the second step. Searches made while signed into a Microsoft account are stored on Microsoft’s servers tied to your account — not just in your browser — which means wiping local history in Edge or Chrome leaves the cloud copy untouched. To actually remove your Bing history in 2026, you need to clear it in the Microsoft Privacy Dashboard and on each device you’ve used Bing from.

This guide covers the exact steps for desktop (Windows and Mac), iPhone, Android, and the Bing mobile app, plus how to stop Bing from saving future searches in the first place.

Where Bing Actually Stores Your Search History

Before you start deleting, it helps to know what lives where. Clearing one location doesn’t clear the others.

Storage Location	What’s Stored	How to Clear
Microsoft account cloud	Signed-in search queries across all devices	Microsoft Privacy Dashboard
Bing.com homepage history panel	Recent queries shown under the search box	Bing → Settings → Search history
Microsoft Edge local history	URLs visited, autofill, cached pages	Edge → Settings → Privacy, search, and services
Bing mobile app	On-device search cache	App Settings → Search history
Device keyboard/search bar suggestions	Predictive text from prior searches	OS keyboard settings

If you only clear the Bing homepage panel, your Microsoft account still has every query. If you only clear Edge, your other signed-in devices still show suggestions. You need to hit every row in the table above to do this properly.

Clear Your Bing History in the Microsoft Privacy Dashboard (the Main Step)

This is the most important step because it wipes the cloud copy of your search history across every device tied to your Microsoft account.

Go to account.microsoft.com/privacy and sign in with the Microsoft account you use for Bing.
Scroll to Search history (it’s one of the large tiles on the dashboard).
Click Search history activity.
To delete individual entries, hover over a search and click the × that appears.
To delete everything at once, click Clear all search history near the top of the list.
Confirm when Microsoft warns you that personalization and suggestions will be reset.

The deletion is immediate, but Microsoft notes that cached server copies can take up to 30 days to fully purge from backups. After that window, the data is gone.

[INTERNAL LINK: how to delete Microsoft account]

Clear Bing Search History From Bing.com Directly

If you only want to clear what shows up on the Bing homepage history panel (not the full Microsoft account log), you can do it from Bing itself.

Open bing.com in any browser while signed in.
Click the hamburger menu (three horizontal lines) in the top right.
Choose Search history.
Click Clear all to wipe the panel, or click the × next to individual entries.
To stop new searches from being saved to the panel going forward, toggle Show new searches here to Off.

Important: toggling “Show new searches here” to Off only hides searches from the homepage panel. It does not stop Microsoft from logging them to your account — you have to also turn off Search history in the Privacy Dashboard under Privacy settings → Search history → Off.

Clear Bing History in Microsoft Edge (Desktop)

Edge stores its own local history on top of anything tied to your Microsoft account.

Open Microsoft Edge.
Click the three-dot menu in the top right → Settings.
Go to Privacy, search, and services in the left sidebar.
Under Clear browsing data, click Choose what to clear.
Set the Time range to All time.
Check every box you want wiped — at minimum: Browsing history, Download history, Cookies and other site data, Cached images and files, and Autofill form data.
Click Clear now.

If you sync Edge across devices (signed in with the same Microsoft account on your PC, phone, and tablet), tick the box under Clear browsing data on sign out at the bottom of the same page. That wipes synced history everywhere when you sign out.

Clear Bing History in Chrome, Firefox, or Safari

If you use Bing inside a different browser, clearing history there is separate from your Microsoft account.

Chrome: Press Ctrl+Shift+Delete (Windows) or Cmd+Shift+Delete (Mac) → set Time range to All time → check Browsing history, Cookies, Cached images → Clear data.
Firefox: Press Ctrl+Shift+Delete → select Everything for time range → check all boxes → OK.
Safari (Mac): Safari menu → Clear History → choose all history → Clear History.
Safari (iPhone/iPad): Settings → Apps → Safari → Clear History and Website Data.

Clearing browser history here only removes local records. Your Microsoft account still holds every signed-in Bing query until you clear it in the Privacy Dashboard.

Clear Bing History on iPhone

The iPhone has three places to check: Safari, the Bing app (if installed), and your Microsoft account.

Open the Bing app → tap your profile icon in the top-left → Settings.
Tap Privacy → Clear search history.
Also tap Clear app cache and data while you’re there.
Close the Bing app and open Safari.
Sign into account.microsoft.com/privacy and clear the dashboard history as described above.
Finally: Settings → Apps → Safari → Clear History and Website Data.

To stop iOS from remembering Bing queries in the search bar, go to Settings → Siri & Search and turn off Show in Search for the Bing app.

Clear Bing History on Android

Open the Bing app → tap your profile icon → Settings.
Tap Privacy and security → Search history → Clear all.
Tap Clear cache and Clear app data in the same menu.
Open your browser (Chrome, Edge, Samsung Internet) and clear browsing data for bing.com — in Chrome, go to Settings → Privacy and security → Clear browsing data → Advanced → All time.
Sign into account.microsoft.com/privacy from mobile and clear the dashboard history.

Samsung Galaxy users: if you set Bing as your default assistant voice search, open Settings → Bixby/Assistant → Search history to wipe voice queries separately. Those don’t appear in the regular Bing history list.

Stop Bing From Saving Future Searches

Deleting history is only half the battle — Microsoft will start logging new searches the next time you query anything while signed in. Here’s how to turn off collection going forward.

Go to account.microsoft.com/privacy.
Open Search history → click Privacy settings.
Toggle Search history to Off.
Repeat the same for Browsing history, App and service activity, and Location activity if you want a full lockdown.

You can also search without being signed in: open an InPrivate window in Edge (Ctrl+Shift+N), or Incognito in Chrome (Ctrl+Shift+N), and run your Bing searches there. Those queries aren’t attached to your account.

For the strongest privacy, switch your default search engine to one that doesn’t log queries at all. In Edge: Settings → Privacy, search, and services → Address bar and search → Search engine used in the address bar.

Troubleshooting: Bing History Won’t Clear

If the Clear all button does nothing, or entries reappear after deletion, try these fixes in order.

Sign out and back in. Click your profile picture on bing.com → Sign out. Close the browser, reopen, and sign in again before retrying the clear.
Clear browser cookies for bing.com and login.live.com. Stale session cookies can block the delete request. In Edge/Chrome: Settings → Cookies and site data → See all cookies → search for bing.com and login.live.com → Remove.
Try a different browser. Some ad blockers and privacy extensions break the Clear button. Open bing.com in a clean browser profile or InPrivate window.
Wait 24 hours. Microsoft’s cache can show recently-deleted history for up to a day before it catches up. If you cleared once and still see entries, give it time before clearing again.
Check for a Family account hold. If your account is part of a Microsoft Family and parental controls are enabled, search history deletion may be blocked. The family organizer has to clear it from account.microsoft.com/family.
Device sync re-uploading history. If Edge is syncing from another device that still has old history, wipe that device too or pause sync: Settings → Profiles → Sync → Turn off.

What Clearing History Does and Doesn’t Do

Clearing your Bing history removes the stored queries, but it does not remove:

Public search results that already indexed your activity (e.g., if you searched for your own name and it appeared in someone else’s cache)
Data shared with advertisers before the clear — Microsoft’s ad partners receive anonymized interest signals, and those aren’t reversible
Entries Microsoft holds for legal, fraud, or security reasons — those stay until the retention period expires

If you want to request a full export or deletion of all data Microsoft holds on you (beyond Bing), use the Download your data and Delete your account options at the bottom of the Privacy Dashboard. Account deletion is permanent after a 60-day grace period.

The Bottom Line

To actually clear your Bing search history in 2026, the order that works is: Microsoft Privacy Dashboard first, then Bing.com homepage, then each browser on each device, then each Bing app. Skipping the dashboard is the most common mistake — it’s where Microsoft keeps the master log, and nothing else you do will touch it.

If privacy is the long-term goal, turn off Search history in the Privacy Dashboard and consider switching your default search engine away from Bing entirely. Clearing history is reactive; not logging it in the first place is the only real fix.