Picture of the Amazon web site, displaying the -Manage Voice Recordings- window.

How to Delete Alexa Voice Recordings History

Jn this piece, we show how to delete Alexa voice recordings for those who do not want a lot of voice history hanging around in their Amazon accounts. Clearing this Amazon Echo history is fairly straight forward. Erasing these recordings though, does present some problems, as discussed below.

How to Delete Alexa Voice Recordings: Introduction

When Does Alexa Record Your Voice

Each time you speak a request or command to your Alexa speaker, the virtual assistant records your voice.  It then sends that data up to Amazon servers in the cloud.  These recordings help the assistant “learn” your ways of talking.  They detail your accent and how you say specific words.  With these, Alexa grows better able to understand you over time.  Plus, the more saved voice recordings, the more accurately Alexa gets what you ask of her.  So, the quality of her answers improves over time as well.  These recordings thus, help create a more pleasant experience with your speaker. But saved voice snippits might create privacy concerns for some.  They worry that some unauthorized person could listen to them.

The Problem with Saved Voice Recordings

But the drawback to this is that Alexa currently saves this audio history for months, or years even.  So these audio snippits could be subpoenaed by a court if you’re ever accused of a crime, and possibly incriminate you, fairly or not.

Also, consider that more than just your requests are recorded and saved.  Indeed, any time the Echo speakers think that they hears someone say, “Alexa…,” “Amazon,…” ‘Computer,…” or “Echo…,” it “wakes up,” and starts recording, and in some cases, saving the audio.  While we ind that these false wake ups occur rarely. they do indeed make saved recordings in your Alexa history.  These do not contain any questions / commands per se. But they can have private conversations.  So, be careful of what you say while Alexa is listening.

Since the microphones in the Alexa speakers are quite sensitive with that far field technology behind them, they can pick up and record what your television is playing, what you’re saying on the phone, distant conversations, and any other sounds occurring within several seconds of when the speaker wakes up.  So, for these reasons, you may wish to periodically erase some or all of these Echo recordings.





The Drawback of Deleting These Voice Recordings

Remember though, as discussed above, that removing them also erases what the Alexa virtual Assistant has learned about how you speak since the last time the recordings were deleted.  Fortunately, keeping or deleting them is your choice; definitely pros and cons for each choice. But if you’ve decide to erase the voice history or parts of it, then read on for instruction on how.

How to Delete Alexa Voice Recordings, Step by Step

To delete your Alexa Echo voice recording history, follow the procedure below.

1. Bring Up a Web Browser 

Use a web browser in either a phone, tablet, or desktop computer.  No matter, so long as the device can access your Amazon account.

2. Visit the Amazon   Manage My Content and Devices   Page  

Amazon then prompts for your Amazon user Id and password if you’re not already logged in with your current browser.

Once logged in, you get the Manage Your Content and Devices   page with several tabs for your devices and content, as shown in the next picture.

Picture of the Amazon web site, displaying the -Manage Your Content and Devices- page. The Devices tab is highlighted.
Amazon web site, displaying the -Manage Your Content and Devices- page. The Devices tab highlighted.

3, Tap or Click the  Devices   Tab to Continue with How to Delete Alexa Voice Recordings

Find this tab on the upper center of the page, as shown  in the last picture.

You then see something like the page displayed next.

Picture of the Amazon web site, displaying the -Manage Content and Devices- page. Aan Alexa device is highlighted.
Amazon web site, displaying the -Manage My Content and Devices- page. An Alexa device is highlighted.

A separate voice history for each Alexa device is kept.  So to delete it all, you must repeat the following steps for each device you wish to purge.

We found no way to run a global device voice recordings delete.  E.g. We found no way to remove the voice requests from all speakers at once.  So, rather than purging all the voice history, we delete here the Alexa history from our  Living Room   device only.





4. Tap the Device from which you Want to Delete the Recordings

In this demo, we tap our   Living Room  Echo Dot. This is the button with the ellipses in it, to the left of the highlighted device in the last picture.

Then, a pop-up window appears. It shows a picture of our device and its name, as seen in the next screen shot.

Picture of the Amazon web site, displaying the -Manage Your Content and Devices- page. This shows the -Living Room- Alexa device window, with the -Manage Voice Recordings- link highlighted.
Amazon web site, displaying the -Manage Your Content and Devices- page. This shows the -Living Room- Alexa device window, with the -Manage Voice Recordings- link highlighted.

5. Tap the  Manage Voice Recordings  Link

Picture of the Amazon web site, displaying the -Manage Voice Recordings- window. The -Delete- button is highlighted.
Amazon web site, displaying the -Manage Voice Recordings- window. The -Delete- button is highlighted.

6. Tap the  Delete  Button to Continue with How to Delete Alexa Voice Recordings

Do this if you’re sure you wish to go ahead with the device history purge.  If not, tap the close (X) button in the top right hand corner of the  Manage Voice Recordings window to cancel out.

But if you chose to proceed, a message appears. It tells that voice recordings history delete is in progress.

Then, when that’s done, a   Deletion Completed Successfully   message appears briefly.

The system then returns you to the    Manage Your Content and Devices    page, as shown next.

Picture of the Amazon web site, displaying the -Manage Content and Devices- page, with an Alexa device highlighted.
Amazon web site, displaying the -Manage Content and Devices- page, with an Alexa device highlighted.




Check that Alexa Voice Recordings have been Deleted

One way to do this is via the Alexa app on your tablet.  We did not find a way to look at your device voice history entries on the Amazon website itself.  But we could also check the history in the Alexa app, as follows.

7. Find the Alexa pp on your Tablet or Phone

Our copy of the app is found on the third page of the  Home   screen on our iOS based iPad tablet, as shown next.

Picture of the iOS Home screen with the Alexa App highlighted.
iOS Home screen with Alexa App highlighted.

8. Then, Run the Alexa App

You should then get the Alexa app   Home  screen, like to the picture next.

Picture of the Amazon Alexa app on iOS, displaying the Home screen, with the Settings option highlighted.
Amazon Alexa app on iOS, displaying the Home screen, with the Settings option highlighted.

9. Tap the   Settings   Option to Continue with How to Delete Alexa Voice Recordings

This brings up the   Settings   screen, as shown next.

Picture of the Amazon Alexa app on iOS, displaying its Settings screen, with the history option highlighted.
Amazon Alexa app on iOS, displaying its Settings screen, with the history option highlighted.

10. Tap the   History-View Requests to Alexa  Option

This is the item pointed at by the pink arrow in the picture just above.

The  Alexa Request History  screen then displays, as shown next.

Picture of the Amazon Alexa app on iOS, displaying the history screen.
Amazon Alexa app on iOS, displaying the history screen.

If you only have one Alexa device on your Amazon account, this screen shows no entries.

But if, like us, you have more than one Alexa Echo speaker, you’ll still see the request history for your other devices, as the picture above shows.  Note that we deleted the history for our Living Room device, so that those requests no longer display in this list.  We had to scroll all the way through this list to check that all Living Room entries are gone.  But our Bedroom device entries remain.

Again, if we wanted to delete ALL the Alexa history, we’d have had to also run the above steps on our Bedroom device.  A complete deletion of the voice recordings on all your Alexa smart devices would be the best way to protect your privacy in the ‘brave new world’ of tech.  Be secure. Just keep in mind though that deleting the voice recordings also makes Alexa forget how you speak.  So without a rich voice history, she may not hear your requests as well.

Other Posts About Alexa

    1. Alexa Spotify Commands List for Echo Speakers
    2. Alexa Action Button, How to Use It
    3. How to Connect Alexa to Pandora
    4. Amazon Alexa Dot Picture Gallery
    5. Hard Reset Alexa Echo Dot Instructions

Related Posts to How to Delete Alexa Voice Recordings

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    2. Unboxing Google Home Voice Activated Speaker
    3. Setting Default Voice in Windows 8 Instructions
    4. How to Turn Off Voice Over on Disney Plus
    5. Setting Windows 10 Voice, Text to Speech

References for How to Delete Alexa Voice Recordings

    1. Alexa and Alexa Devices FAQ   on Amazon.com

Revision History

    • 2019-04-12: Added subheadings, tags, and key phrase targeting.  Removed ad code also.
    • 2017-01-19: Originally published.