After watching some YouTube videos, I discovered that Microsoft keeps a log of your activities in a file called “ActivitiesCache.db”. I thought it was only for Windows 11, but I also found the file on all of my Windows 10 computers.
The path to the file on my system is
C\Users\Terry\AppData\Local\ConnectedDevicesPlatform\L.Terry\ActivitiesCache.db
It’s a hidden file, so you have to show hidden files first. In the search bar, type “File Explorer Options”. Click the “View” tab and in the “Advanced settings” section, scroll down to the “Hidden files and folders” section. Select the “Show hidden files, folders, and drives” option and uncheck “Hide protected operating system files (Recommended)”. Accept any security prompts”.
You can disable this data collection by disabling the “Activity History”. Go to “Settings”. Then “Privacy”. Then “Activity History” (down the left-hand menu). Then remove the check mark from “Store my activity history on this device”. You can also click on the “Clear” button under the “Clear activity history” section.
My file was 19 MB. Now it remains steady at 4 KB.
By the way, if you want to read the contents of the ActivitiesCache.db file to see what is being saved, you’ll need a program like “DB Browser For SQLite”.
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Good read. But I’ve had that unchecked since I built this Win10 Pro desktop PC , finished in February, 2020, where three files so dated are in an \L.Administrator folder. I also have six files in two folders \L.MyUserName and \L.GUIDstring dated in August, October and November, 2025. They’re are chock full of data, including info on the third party firewall I use.
The “clear activity history” function seems to be valid only when there is an “your accounts on this device” account shown, which has its own toggle which I set to off back in February, 2020 when I first set things up as admin before creating the local. And I did hit that clear before setting it to off. Could be there’s a registry or gpedit setting(s) to tweak? Thanks.