Local cleanup and online privacy are two different problems. This guide is about the first one: what a Windows PC records about you, and how much of it you can genuinely erase.
What Windows keeps about your activity
- Recently opened documents and jump lists,
- Search terms typed into the Start menu and File Explorer,
- Thumbnail caches, which can survive the deletion of the original image,
- Clipboard history, if you turned it on,
- Browser history, cookies, autofill, and download records.
A privacy-focused selection
Check history, cookies, session data, form history and download records for each browser, plus the Windows recent documents, search history, clipboard and thumbnail cleaners. Preview, read the list, delete. Expect to be signed out of your accounts afterwards — that is the trade.
Shredding rather than deleting
An ordinary delete removes the pointer, not the contents. File, Shred Files overwrites first, which defeats consumer recovery software. On a mechanical hard drive this is genuinely effective; on an SSD, wear leveling means some copies may persist regardless, and full-disk encryption with BitLocker is the more reliable protection.
What cleanup cannot do
Nothing you delete locally affects the records held by other people. Your ISP still has connection logs. Websites still have server logs and any account activity you were signed in for. A managed work laptop may report to a monitoring agent that your cleanup never touched. Local cleaning is worth doing — just be clear about its boundary.
Before you sell or donate a PC
- Sign out of every account and remove the machine from your Microsoft account,
- Copy off what you need,
- Use Reset this PC with the "remove everything" and clean-the-drive options,
- If the drive holds anything sensitive and is mechanical, wipe free space afterwards.
See also: clearing browser cache and the feature notes on shredding.