How to Clear your Recent Searches on Facebook Messenger

This article is intended to help you understand how to delete your Facebook Messenger search history on all platforms: iPhone and Android (this feature isn’t available on computers).

Hey, it’s Frankie Caruso (obsessed with pizza, pasta, and all things social media) here again and today I want to tell you another technology trick to help you increase privacy on Messenger.

You might not know this, but every search you make for someone on Facebook Messenger is saved in a log of your “recent searches”.

While this might be reserved for your own information (and the servers of Facebook), it is still a little unnerving to know that there’s a long standing record of everyone you’ve ever searched for. This might be a damaging bit of knowledge if your partner gained access to your phone.

Here is how you clear your history on Messenger.

Clearing Your Search History on Messenger on iPhone (or iPad)

This process takes very few seconds and no computer skills:

1. Launch Facebook Messenger app
2. Click on the Search bar – just like as if you were searching a contact
3. The last contacts you searched for will appear. Click on Edit in the upper right corner.
4. Click Clear All if you want to erase your entire search history; otherwise, if you want to remove one or more contacts individually, tap X next to the contact you want to delete from your search history.

Easy peasy, isn’t it?

Clearing Your Search History on Messenger on Android device

The process is the same on all Android devices (Samsung, Pixel, OnePlus etc.)

1. Open Messenger app
2. Tap the search bar at the top of Chats tab
3. The list of Recent Searches will appear. Tap on Edit
4. Click Clear All if you want to erase all your search history; otherwise, if you want to remove one or more contacts individually, tap X next to the contact you want to delete from the search history.

Congratulations now you have cleaned up all traces!

What about Search History on Facebook?

As you probably already know, Messenger can be accessed from your PC through the Facebook Chat panel (the one located on the right side of the social network’s main page) and through the dedicated Messenger.com website. In none of the two cases, however, is there a search history like the one available in the Messenger app for Android and iOS.

The only search history available on Facebook (both on your computer and as an app on your smartphone) is the one related to searches made within the social network, i.e. searches for people, pages, events etc.

If you want to delete all – or just a few names – of the searches made on Facebook, all you have to do is follow these simple instructions:

1. Click on the Search icon (the magnifying glass) located in the top right corner
2. You will see a window showing your Recent Searches.
3. If you want to delete one or more elements of the history all you have to do is find them and click on X on the right. Alternatively, if you wish to delete the entire Search History then click on See All and then the trash can icon in the top right corner.

Conclusion

I hope the information included in this post was useful to you – as it has been to so many others.

By following these simple steps you’ll raise the privacy level on your cell phone. In fact, after deleting your Messenger search history, even if your phone were to end up in the wrong hands (e.g. your partner) there will be no traces that could raise suspicion.

However, bear in mind that there are softwares that can “spy” on everything you do on Facebook and access your conversations on Messenger. I tell you about it in this post: how to hack Facebook Messenger without password. I highly recommend you take a look at it.

If you have any doubts or questions feel free to drop a comment below.

Till next time,

Frankie Caruso