You Can Now Download A Horrifying List Of Everything You’ve Ever Googled

Google is great. It tells you what those mysterious little things on the end of shoelaces are called, it’s been in happy-go-lucky movies with Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, and it even entertains you with inventive takes on old arcade games.

But, much like those people who seem way too enthusiastic about pressed juices to mask the fact they’re secretly dead inside, it’s actually a little bit terrifying. Google has a worrying monopoly over most of the world’s data, and is basically compiling a personalised library of shame on every last damned one of us.

Of course, we know this. For better or worse, this is the tradeoff we make for being able to find relevant information quickly or finally figure out those stupid shoe things are called aglets. (AGLETS. OKAY? Are you happy now?)

What you might not know is that you can check out all that data for yourself. As this UK tech blog discovered this week, Google quietly released a feature in January which allows you to download a .zip file of everything you’ve searched for on both your computer and phone. If you’re accustomed to using an incognito mode or are never signed into your Gmail account you’re safe, but for everyone else it’s an easily accessible list of all your expertly hidden stupidity.

Importantly, this list is only accessible by you… and Google. But it’s actually quite a handy tool for finding out what the interwebs has on ya.

First you have to sign in and head to your Google Accounts page, go to the little cog wheel in the right-hand corner, and click “Download”. You’ll then get a warning message which tells you not to do this if you’re on a public computer and requires a two-step verification process to move forward.

Shortly, you’ll receive an email with both a .zip file and a Google Drive link with your searches divided into years and quarters. The files themselves can be a bit hard to decipher so, as SMH note, the best way to make sense of it is to open it in a plain text app and search the term “query_text”. That will make your thoughts easier to see, but I can’t guarantee they’ll actually make any sense.

In the spirit of Google Poetics, here’s a little glimpse at what I was searching in April of each year.

–

2011 or Hello, And Welcome To The Internet

justin beiber youtube

bob katter

shoplifting from american apparel

marcel the shell

chocolate chocolate chocolate aack

nic cage is everyone

mia freedman

wingdings

pirate of the year

things you should not care about

–

2012 or Uni: A Much More Complicated Time

indigenous people of northern siberia

mythical mountain nymph

Frank sinatra song oh dindee

invasive cultures american psycho

scouting for dogs

protective covers for animals

building a yacht to explore the south pacific in auckland 1940s

helen keller movie british fashion house distinctive tartan

world’s largest dog show

first feature length film synchonised dialogue

wild animals after 20 ancestors

what kills more people than HIV TB and malaria

flapdoodle

–

2013 or So, You’ve Finished An Arts Degree

mcsweeneys internships

david foster wallace this is water

new york airbnb

things that get hit by lightning

JULIA GILLARD

–

2014 or Adulthood

airbnb murder

subway falling asleep

how to turb off ipod

valoum and painkillers

setting things on fire

patrick swayze point break

famous kung fu moves

dry gin martini

harry potter wikipedia

jeff koons naked

–

2015 or You Should Probably Get Some Help

shut.the.fuck up song

huntsman spider bite

good wyaa to make yourself.throw.up

the internet

–

If you’ve found all this completely horrifying, I apologise for being such a mess of a human. Also: you can completely limit Google’s access to this kind of stuff by changing the settings in your Google Account History. The more you know.