When you have been using your Windows 11 PC for some time, part of your actions are recorded by the operating system. This is done to make your experience better and smoother when using your Windows 11 PC. This feature is called user activity history and it stores many of the user actions. This includes the websites that were open in the Microsoft Edge web browser and the apps that you have been using and the services running on your Windows PC.
By storing the user activity history, it can predict your actions and might help you get back to the same websites and apps the next time you use your Windows PC. It is not very much different from a very good waitress who already knows what a regular customer orders for the lunch everyday.
But if you do not like this feature, then you can disable this feature or even clear the user history. Here is how:
- Press the hotkey Win+I to open Windows settings. You can also click on Start icon and then click on the cogwheel icon to open Windows settings.
- In the settings, select the Privacy & Security category and then select Activity History from the left side.
- For disabling the user activity history, deselect the checkbox labeled Store my activity history on this device.
- For clearing the user activity history, you can click on the button Clear as displayed in the screenshot.
After you follow these steps, your user activity history will no longer be stored on the local storage devices such as the hard disk drives or solid state drives. If you want to enable this feature once again then you can repeat these steps except that now you should select the check boxes. One advantage of disabling and clearing the user activity history is more privacy and undesired history recording of the user actions.