How to delete voice recordings on your Amazon Echo

The Amazon Echo product lineup has many of our favorite smart home devices. They allow us to easily control other internet-connected gadgets in our homes, making them a central part of our daily lives.

The one thing in common with Amazon’s lineup of Echo smart speakers is that we control them using our voice. By default, your voice recordings are stored on your Amazon account until you manually delete them. This guide shows you how to access your saved voice recordings and remove them as necessary.

Does Alexa really record and listen to everything you say?

Some might consider the idea of smart home speakers always listening to us in the background as problematic or an invasion of privacy. We ask these devices many personal questions throughout the day, and you want to know that your data won’t be mishandled. Since voice recordings can contain private information about you and your family, they must stay between you and your devices, and no one else. At the same time, you should also be aware of what Amazon does with your voice recordings and how they handle your saved data in the cloud.

Source: Amazon

Amazon is transparent and straightforward about its privacy policy for Amazon Echo devices that use Alexa. First, your Alexa-powered devices are not always listening since they only wake with your chosen wake word. You don’t have to worry about randomly saving private conversations to your account. It only sends data to the cloud after initiating the wake word by default. Once your device starts listening and you ask it to do something, that audio clip is immediately sent to Amazon’s cloud to process your request. From there, it’s saved to your Amazon account for viewing later.

What does Amazon do with your Alexa voice recordings?

Amazon Echo smart speakers and display will light up when they’re listening for, and processing, voice commands. All Amazon Echo smart devices have a physical microphone button you can turn off if you don’t want the device to accidentally pick up your conversation. Amazon uses your saved voice recordings to train Alexa’s speech recognition to enhance its voice assistant product over time. It practices what is known as supervised machine learning, which allows Amazon to review small audio samples to ensure accuracy for Alexa’s training.

Amazon states it has various safeguards to protect your privacy during these controlled audio reviews, so you should be safe here. Still, you’re in charge of your voice recordings and how they are saved to your account. You can opt out of the feature if you don’t like the idea of Amazon using your data for any reason. However, choosing not to save the audio to your Amazon account means your experience might be slightly different. Keeping some voice recordings can help Alexa better understand and process your requests in the future.

How to delete your voice recordings using the Alexa app

The Alexa app on your smartphone helps you manage all sorts of settings for your Echo devices. It has everything you need, from changing Alexa’s voice to picking a new default music service. You can also set up multiple user profiles as needed, making your Echo devices even more personal for each family member.

If you need to delete one or multiple voice recordings from your Amazon account, it’s simple to do. To get started, check out the following steps.

Locate your Alexa Privacy settings in the Amazon Alexa app

1. Download the Amazon Alexa app if necessary, then open it to the main screen.
2. Sign in to your Amazon account with the appropriate email address and password.
3. Press the More tab in the lower-right corner, then go to Settings.

4. Go to Alexa Privacy and tap the Review Voice History section.

Select and delete the voice recordings of your choosing from the app

1. Tap the Displaying drop-down menu, then go to Filter by date.
2. Choose the date range you want to remove the voice recording. Select the All History option if you want to remove all voice recordings at once.
3. Tap Filter by device or profile.
4. Select each device and profile you want to remove the voice recordings from. Select the All devices and profiles option to remove all voice recordings from everywhere.

5. Tap Delete all of my recordings, then review the Delete Displayed Recordings popup.
6. Press the Delete button to continue.

7. The selected voice recordings are now removed from your account.

How to delete you voice recordings using the Alexa Voice History on your web browser

If you don’t want to use the Amazon Alexa app on your smartphone, you can manage most of your voice settings from the web. The instructions are similar but with fewer clicks required.

To manage your Amazon Echo voice recordings from the web, do the following.

Sign in to your Amazon account and sort through your recordings

1. Visit the official Alexa Voice History page in your favorite web browser.
2. Sign in to your Amazon account with the appropriate email address and password.

3. Select the Displaying drop-down menu and go to Filter by date.
4. Choose the date range you want to remove the voice recording from. To remove all voice recordings at once, select the All History option.

5. Tap Filter by device or profile.
6. Select each device and profile you want to remove the voice recordings from. Select the All devices and profiles option to remove all voice recordings from everywhere.

Select and delete the voice recordings you’d like to remove from Amazon’s servers.

1. Tap Delete all of my recordings and then review the Delete Displayed Recordings popup.

2. Press the Delete button to continue.

3. The selected voice recordings are removed from your account.

Auto-delete your Alexa recordings by voice and set up automatic deletion

Now that you’ve removed your old Alexa voice recordings, you can automate the removal process with a few quick taps. Knowing these recordings will be deleted without any effort in the future can simplify your life. Once you set it, it’ll take care of itself from here on out. No more worrying about manually deleting voice recordings.

To set an auto-delete schedule for Alexa voice recordings, check out the following steps.

From the Alexa app

1. Open the Amazon Alexa app to the main page.
2. Press the More tab in the lower-right corner and go to Settings.
3. Tap Alexa Privacy, then select the Manage Your Alexa Data section.

4. You may want to turn on the Enable deletion by voice option before continuing. This allows you to tell your Amazon Echo device to forget what it heard on the spot, which is helpful for short voice sessions.
5. Press the Choose how long to save recordings arrow on the right.

6. Select Save recordings for 18 months or Save recordings for 3 months, depending on your needs. You can also choose the Don’t save recordings option to prevent voice recordings from being stored on your account entirely. Amazon notes that it can take up to 36 hours for the changes to take effect.
7. Once you choose the option that works best for you, click the Confirm button.
8. A new message pops up stating that your messages won’t be saved any longer after the change.
9. Press Confirm to update your account settings.

From a desktop browser using the Manage Your Alexa Data page

1. Visit the official Manage Your Alexa Data page in your favorite web browser.
2. Sign in to your Amazon account if prompted.
3. After logging in, you may want to turn on the Enable deletion by voice option before continuing. This allows you to tell your Amazon Echo device to forget what it heard on the spot, which is helpful for short voice sessions.
4. Click the Choose how long to save recordings arrow on the right.

5. Select Save recordings for 18 months or Save recordings for 3 months, depending on your needs. You can also select the Don’t save recordings option to prevent voice recordings from being stored on your account entirely. Amazon notes that it can take up to 36 hours for the changes to take effect.
6. Once you choose the option that works best for you, click the Confirm button.

7. A new message pops up stating that your messages won’t be saved any longer after the change.
8. Press Confirm to update your account settings.

Keep your privacy in check without giving up on smart speakers

Amazon Echo smart home speakers are great, but sometimes they might not be able to hear your correctly. If this happens to you more often than not, you can try some tips and tricks to help your Alexa devices understand you better.