Securing Cortana Information for Windows Users

Cortana, the free digital assistant from Microsoft, helps you carry out your searches, set up reminders, get weather and news updates, etc., right from your voice. To do these tasks well, Cortana keeps a log of your searches and other personalized data, such as your contacts and calendar details.

While this is incontrovertibly a nightmare for the more privacy-obsessed of us, there’s a small silver lining in that Microsoft lets you view, download, and even delete your collected Cortana data. While we’ll stick with just the downloading part here, we’ll also briefly touch on how you can use this data.

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How to Download Your Cortana Data on Windows

Fortunately, big tech businesses letting you download your personal information is not news anymore. Twitter lets you download your data , and Google lets you see your history and activity .

Microsoft is no different. For Cortana, Microsoft has a similar policy, as stated on Microsoft Support . To download all your Cortana history, just follow the below steps:

1. Head to your Microsoft account , and log in with your credentials.
2. From there, you can find your Cortana data in Browsing history, Search history, etc.
3. Click on any particular section, and then select Download your data.

That’s it. Depending on how much you’ve used Cortana till now and how much data Microsoft has about you, your Cortana data will be downloaded in anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes. Note that in some cases, as stated on Microsoft Support , you might be unable to download your Cortana data for a variety of reasons. Some of them include:

• You turned off the Windows settings related to Cortana data collection.
• The data isn’t available on the privacy dashboard right now, and Microsoft will show it when it becomes available.
• Your data was cleared off very recently.

Why Download Your Cortana Data?

Now that you’ve downloaded the data (which in itself would be a waste of space), let’s look at the different ways you can use it for your benefit:

1. Review your commands: You can go through the pile of your Cortana data and go over the most used commands, searches, or other similar interactions you’ve had with Cortana so far. This can come in handy if you’d like to retrieve some specific interactions you’ve had with Cortana in the past.
2. Look for patterns in Cortana bugs: Sometimes, Cortana doesn’t exactly give you what you want. By looking through your command history, you’ll get a quick bird’s eye view of your issues with Cortana so far. From there, you can work on ways to work around different Cortana glitches.

The couple of points we’ve laid above are some of the most common uses of your Cortana data. Perhaps you need it for something else right now, but we’re sure there are plenty of other uses out there as well.

Moreover, make sure you store your data in a safe place on your Windows. This is because your Cortana searches so far might have tons of sensitive information that you otherwise wouldn’t want someone else to get their hands on. In fact, this is where a Windows file or folder encryption can help save the day for you.

Downloading the Cortana Data on Your Windows PC

Downloading and using your Cortana data doesn’t have to be complicated. We hope our guide from above proved just that, and you now have your Cortana data with you. Finally, we’d also like to mention that there are always tradeoffs in using services like Cortana—the most notable being privacy.

While this is incontrovertibly a nightmare for the more privacy-obsessed of us, there’s a small silver lining in that Microsoft lets you view, download, and even delete your collected Cortana data. While we’ll stick with just the downloading part here, we’ll also briefly touch on how you can use this data.

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