How To Delete Purchase History on Amazon

Amazon is one of the most popular retail websites on the internet. As such, people use it to get a wide variety of things from everyday items to stuff you might prefer to keep private. Although your purchase history on Amazon is accessible only via your account, you’re probably pretty much permanently logged in, or have saved the pass and username in your browser.

In order to protect your privacy, you’ll want to keep your purchase history away from the prying eyes. You are probably used to clearing your browser history, purposefully, or during your regular cleanups in order to keep things clean. Unfortunately, deleting your order history is impossible on Amazon. Hiding it, however, is entirely possible, even though your purchased items database never goes away completely.

Why You Might Want to Hide Your Purchase History

Your private life is your thing. No matter what you may have ordered (as long as it’s legal to buy and own), it‘s nobody’s business. As long as it’s on Amazon, the legalities of it are their business. However, there are other reasons for hiding your orders from people.

For one, you may have ordered a Christmas, birthday, or anniversary gift for your significant other, and you don’t want to ruin the surprise. This is especially important if you share your computer with them.

Alternatively, you may want to hide your history when capturing a screenshot of the Amazon purchase list for someone, because you want it to appear more professional and less personal. In conclusion, there are many reasons why you may want to learn how to hide your order history.

Archive an Amazon Order

If you want to archive a particular order, without having to clear the entire Amazon history, you’ll be happy to know that you can do it fairly easy.

1. Sign into your Amazon account by entering all the necessary info.
2. Go to the home page by either typing in https://www.amazon.com or clicking through one of many home page links all over the Amazon website.
   
3. Go to the top right corner of the Amazon home page and click the Orders
4. This link will take you to a list of your past orders, all displayed by date.
5. Click Archive order at the bottom of the boxes on the right side of each order.
6. Click the yellow Archive order button when prompted again.

The orders that you’ve archived will no longer appear on the order page. If you want to access the orders that you’ve archived, navigate to the Your Orders page and click on the box that has “past 6 months” as a default setting. In the menu that appears, you’ll note the Archived Orders option.

Clear Amazon Browsing History

First of all, the best way to keep someone from learning about your searches is to browse Amazon from the private/incognito window that’s available in most browsers. This may have you log in manually every time, but if you want to keep your searches away from the prying eyes this is the right way to do it.

If that ship has already sailed, don’t worry, because clearing your browsing history isn’t difficult.

1. Sign into Amazon account by entering all the necessary info.
2. Go to the home page, as shown in the previous example.
3. If you want to clear a particular item from your search history, find the Browsing History link in the top right section of the screen.
4. Upon clicking the link, a list of your most recent searches will pop up.
5. Hit the Remove from view option for each item.

Do this for all the search entries that you want to hide from people and Amazon will hide each item.

Amazon Household Account

The by-far easiest way to hide your purchases from family members is to opt for an Amazon Household Account. It is important to note that this option is for Prime members only. The best part about this option is that it allows you to share the benefits of Amazon with another adult, children, and/or teens within your household.

Essentially, this account type allows the user to keep their purchase history, lists, and recommendations private, that is, separate from those of other household members.

Prevention Is Key

As mentioned earlier, using the private/incognito window for browsing Amazon for things that aren’t for the public eye (for whatever reason) is the best way to keep the browsing history clean. Of course, this will still have the purchase history appear in your Amazon account, so hiding the items that you want to keep private is the right way to go.

Ideally, you should make a new Amazon account for private purchases. This will help you avoid all the trouble, as well as the potential drama and awkwardness. Simply create a new email address, use it to make a new account, and use a credit/debit/internet card that only has access to in the entire household.

So, do you hide your browsing and purchase history on Amazon? What ways of doing so do you use? Feel free to share your thoughts, opinions, and advice in the comment section below.