The smartwatches and fitness trackers we wear on our wrists are designed to record our activity in minute detail—but there may be times when you’d rather not have records collected.
Whether you want to restart your fitness routine, are concerned that your watch has too much data on you, or for any other reason, deleting data from your wearable is simple.
The Apple Watch
If you have an Apple Watch on your wrist, all of the data it collects is synced to the Health app on your iPhone. Most synced data and activity can be deleted in part or entirely; all it takes is a little digging. Open the Health app and select Browse, then select the data you want to work with and Show All Data.
You’ll notice an Edit button in the upper right corner: By tapping the red icons on the left-hand side, you can delete individual entries from the list.
You can also delete everything at once by selecting Edit and then the Delete All option.
You can also delete everything at once by selecting Edit and then the Delete All option. Whether you’re erasing individual entries or the entire database, a confirmation prompt will appear to ensure that’s what you want to do.
It’s also possible to control the data synced from your Apple Watch, so that certain information, such as your heart rate, isn’t logged by the wearable. To do so, go to the Health app and select Summary, then your profile picture (top right), and finally Devices. Select Privacy Settings from the list and then your Apple Watch.
You can also reset your Apple Watch and return it to the condition it was in when you first got it. This will delete everything on the device, but it will not delete any data that has already been synced to your iPhone. Open the Settings app on the Apple Watch and select General, Reset, and Erase All Content and Settings.
Fitbit
Fitbit manufactures a wide range of trackers and smartwatches, but they are all managed via the Fitbit app for Android or iOS, and you can also access your data dashboard via the web. A plethora of different types of information is gathered, and you can edit and delete much of it by tapping (or clicking) around.
Open the Today tab in the mobile app, for example, and tap on any exercise tile that appears (such as the one for daily walks). If you then navigate to an individual activity, you can delete it by tapping the three dots (top right) and selecting Delete.
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