How to Remove Personal Information From Google: What Works, What Doesn't (2026)

Your phone number, home address, or email appears in a Google search result. You did not put it there, and you want it gone. Google has a specific process for this, and it works for a well-defined set of personal information types. Here is exactly how to use it, what qualifies, and what remains visible even after a successful removal.

What Google will remove

Google's personal information removal policy, updated in 2023 and still active in 2026, covers content that creates a risk of identity theft, financial fraud, or direct contact harm. The eligible types are:

• Contact information: phone numbers, email addresses, physical home addresses.
• Identity documents: national ID numbers, passport numbers, driver's licence numbers, tax identification numbers.
• Financial information: bank account numbers, credit card numbers.
• Medical records: personal medical information published without consent.
• Login credentials: usernames and passwords exposed in public pages.
• Handwritten signatures and personal images published without consent.

Google also accepts removal requests for explicit personal images shared without consent (sometimes called non-consensual intimate images) through a separate form.

What Google will not remove through this tool: information that is part of a news article or public record, content you posted yourself on your own social media profiles, business contact information listed on a company website, or content that is broadly in the public interest.

Step-by-step: submitting a removal request

Step 1: find the URLs

Search for your name, phone number, or email in Google. Open each result that shows your personal information and copy the exact URL from the address bar. You will need these URLs for the form.

Step 2: open Google's removal tool

Go to Google's "Remove your personal information from Google" support page. The direct path is: Google Search Help, then "Remove your personal information from Google," then "Request removals." You will need to be signed into a Google account.

Step 3: fill in the form

The form asks you to:

1. Select the type of information (contact info, identity documents, financial, etc.).
2. Provide the URLs where the information appears.
3. Describe what personal information is exposed.
4. Provide screenshots showing the information on the page.
5. Confirm that the information is yours.

Submit the form. Google assigns a case ID and sends a confirmation to your email.

Step 4: wait for review

Google reviews the request against its policy. The review considers whether the content is newsworthy, part of a public record, or in the public interest. Results that clearly expose personal contact details alongside identifying information are typically approved.

What happens after approval

When Google approves a removal, it delists the specific URL from its search index. That means the page will no longer appear in Google Search results for any query.

The page itself is not deleted. Google does not own the website. The content remains on the original server, accessible to anyone with the direct link, and visible through other search engines like Bing, DuckDuckGo, or Yandex.

Cached copies may linger briefly. Google's cache and any saved snippets may take a few days to disappear after the URL is removed from the index.

The removal applies to the specific URL. If the same information appears on a different page or a different URL on the same site, you need to submit a separate request for each one.

What to do about the source website

Removing a result from Google is half the job. The information still lives on the original website. Your options:

Contact the website owner. Most sites have a contact page or a WHOIS record listing an administrative email. Send a clear, specific request identifying the page and the personal information you want removed. Many site owners comply, especially for information they did not intentionally publish.

Use a GDPR erasure request (EU residents). Under GDPR Article 17, EU residents can request erasure of personal data from any data controller. The request must be in writing, and the controller has one month to respond. If the site is based outside the EU but serves EU users, GDPR still applies.

Use the CCPA (California residents). The California Consumer Privacy Act gives California residents the right to request deletion of personal information held by businesses subject to the law.

Contact the hosting provider. If the website owner does not respond, you can contact the hosting company. Most hosting providers have an abuse or legal department that handles removal requests, particularly for content that violates their terms of service.

Data broker sites: the repeat offenders

A large share of personal information in Google results comes from data broker sites, also called people-search sites. These include Spokeo, BeenVerified, WhitePages, Radaris, and similar services that aggregate public records and sell access.

Each of these sites has an opt-out process, but the processes vary: some require an email verification, some require identity verification, and some make you wait weeks. Worse, data brokers re-acquire records periodically, so information you removed can reappear months later.

The practical approach is:

1. Submit opt-out requests to each data broker where your information appears.
2. Submit Google removal requests for the URLs at the same time.
3. Set a calendar reminder to re-check in three months.

If the volume is large, paid removal services exist that automate opt-out submissions across dozens of data brokers. Whether they are worth the cost depends on how many sites have your data and how often it reappears.

The "Results About You" tool

Google launched a feature called "Results About You" that monitors search results containing your contact information and alerts you when new ones appear. You can then request removal directly from the notification.

To set it up: open the Google app on your phone, tap your profile picture, then "Results about you." Enter the contact information you want monitored (name, phone number, email, address). Google will alert you when it finds matching results.

This is useful as a monitoring tool, not as a complete solution. It only covers Google Search, and it only detects new results, not existing ones you have not yet reviewed.

What stays visible after everything

Even with successful removal from Google and deletion from source sites, some traces typically remain:

• The Wayback Machine (archive.org) may have cached the page before removal. You can submit a removal request to the Internet Archive, but compliance is at their discretion.
• Other search engines (Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yandex) have their own indexes and their own removal processes. Removing from Google does not affect them.
• Social media posts that mentioned or linked to the information.
• Public records databases maintained by government agencies.

Complete disappearance from the internet is not achievable through any single tool or process. What is achievable is reducing your exposure in the places where most people would find it, and Google Search is the largest of those by a wide margin.