Windows Timeline is a new feature in Windows 10 that was introduced with the April 2018 Update. It keeps track of the websites you visit, Office documents you edit, and multimedia files you use on your computer in a chronological order. The Task View interface, which can be accessed from the taskbar or the Win+Tab keyboard shortcut, displays events. Your Timeline is synchronized across all of your devices, including Android phones, thanks to Microsoft Launcher.
With Windows 10 April 2018 Update and newer, Windows Timeline is enabled by default. We’ll show you how to turn it off and on, as well as how to re-enable it if you want to use it again. It’s a good time to give Timeline another chance now that it supports a growing number of apps, including Google Chrome browsing history.
Disabling Timeline
If you’re concerned about the privacy implications or simply don’t use Timeline, you may want to turn it off. To begin, go to the Settings app’s homepage and select the “Privacy” category.
Go to the “Activity history” page under the “Windows permissions” section in the left navigation bar. Despite the fact that the “Timeline” name isn’t mentioned, this is where all of the feature’s settings are stored.
The first checkbox on the page, “Store my activity history on this device” (on Windows 10 April 2018 Update, “Let Windows collect my activities from this PC”), determines whether Timeline can log activities from your current device. Nothing will be recorded if it is turned off, whether in the cloud or offline.
You can continue to use Timeline without it synchronizing your activities across all of your devices. Uncheck the box labeled “Send my activity history to Microsoft” to accomplish this. In the Windows 10 April 2018 Update, this option is labeled “Let Windows synchronize my activities from this PC to the cloud,” but it has the same effect.
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This option prevents your device’s Timeline activities from being synced with your Microsoft account, so they won’t appear on your other devices. However, because this is a per-device option, you’ll still see activity from your other devices on your current one if you keep the other Timeline settings enabled. To completely avoid using cloud sharing, you’ll need to disable this setting on each of your devices.
Finally, even after unticking the two checkboxes, the Timeline UI may still show existing activities. The toggle buttons under “Show activities from these accounts” determine the contents of the Timeline interface. If you disable accounts in this section, no activities associated with them will appear in Timeline.
As a result, untick both of the checkboxes on this page to completely disable the Timeline interface. To hide any existing history that has been collected, toggle the buttons under “Show activities from accounts” to “off.” Because the Timeline will be completely empty as a result of this setting, your Task View screen will revert to its pre-April 2018 Update state.
Last but not least, disabling Timeline does not delete any data that has already been synchronized to the cloud. To do so, go to the bottom of the settings page and click the “Clear” button under the “Clear activity history” heading. This will clear your Microsoft account of all your activities.
Enabling Timeline
If Timeline isn’t showing all of your activities or is turned off, go to the “Activity history” settings page as described above. Under the “Show activities from these accounts” heading, make sure your Microsoft account is enabled for Timeline; if it isn’t, Timeline won’t show any activities.
Also, make sure the two checkboxes at the top of the page are checked. If the first option (“Store my activity history on this device”) is not selected, no activities from your device will be collected, and your Timeline will be empty.
Finally, if Timeline isn’t showing activities from one of your other devices, make sure the second checkbox (“Send my activity history to Microsoft”) on that device is enabled; otherwise, it won’t be able to synchronize its activity data to the cloud.
With the checkboxes selected and your account set up for Timeline, your activities should begin to appear in the interface. Everything should appear everywhere – on your Windows 10 products, Android phones with Microsoft Launcher, and iPhones with Microsoft Edge – assuming you’ve enabled cloud sync on all of your devices
