A fresh Windows 11 installation comes with a set of defaults that favor data collection over user privacy. The advertising identifier is on. Optional diagnostic data is on. Activity history is on. Cortana-adjacent personalization features are on. Cloud clipboard is on. Various apps have permission to access your location, microphone, and camera even if you’ve never explicitly granted them anything.
None of this is hidden — the settings are accessible, the disclosures are technically present in the setup flow. But the defaults mean that most Windows 11 users are sharing significantly more data with Microsoft and third parties than they’ve actively chosen to share.
If you use Windows 11 as your primary work and personal computer — the machine where you manage files, run documents, and potentially sync personal storage — the settings below are worth reviewing before you assume your device is operating with privacy in mind.
Why This Matters for Personal Files
A Windows privacy guide might seem tangential to the question of personal memory and file storage. The connection is direct.
Many people use their Windows desktop or laptop to manage personal files: photos from a phone, documents, financial records, medical information. Those files often sync to cloud storage from the same machine. How Windows handles telemetry, activity history, and cloud features affects what additional data is generated about your file activity beyond the files themselves.
Windows Recall — the AI screenshot-every-few-seconds feature — is the most dramatic example of this. But the broader category of features that build records of what you’ve done on your device is large, and the settings below address the most impactful of them.
Before You Start: Where the Settings Live
Most of the settings in this guide are in one of two places:
Settings > Privacy & security — The main hub for data and privacy controls. Most of the settings below live here.
Settings > System — A few system-level features (clipboard, notifications, focus assist) also live here.
You’ll also find some app-specific settings in Settings > Apps > Installed apps and in individual app settings.
Section 1: General Privacy Settings
Go to Settings > Privacy & security > General.
These four toggles control some of the most significant data flows in Windows:
Let apps show me personalized ads by using my advertising ID — Turn this off. Windows assigns every user account a unique advertising identifier that allows apps to track your behavior across the system and serve targeted ads. Disabling this doesn’t eliminate all ads, but it disconnects the cross-app tracking mechanism.
Let websites show me locally relevant content by accessing my language list — This sends your preferred language settings to websites as a proxy for location. Turn off if you don’t want websites to infer your geographic location from your language preferences.
Let Windows improve Start and search results by tracking app launches — Turn off. This tracks which apps you open and uses that data to personalize Start menu suggestions and search. The personalization value is marginal; the data collection is persistent.
Show me suggested content in the Settings app — Turn off. This controls whether Settings displays sponsored recommendations. Functionally minor, but there’s no reason to leave it on.
Section 2: Diagnostics and Feedback
Go to Settings > Privacy & security > Diagnostics & feedback.
Diagnostic data — Set this to “Required diagnostic data only.” Windows requires a minimum level of diagnostic data to function and receive updates, but “Optional diagnostic data” (the default) sends detailed information about apps you use, websites you visit, and device usage patterns. Required-only is sufficient for a functioning, updated system.
Improve inking and typing — Turn off. This sends samples of what you type and draw with a stylus to Microsoft for input method improvement. Turn off.
Tailored experiences — Turn off. This uses diagnostic data to personalize tips and recommendations. It’s a secondary use of telemetry data that most users don’t want.
View diagnostic data — This doesn’t need to be toggled, but it’s useful to open the Diagnostic Data Viewer at least once to see what’s been collected. It may be more than you expected.
Delete your diagnostic data using the “Delete” button under “Delete diagnostic data” if you want to clear what’s already been sent.
Section 3: Activity History
Go to Settings > Privacy & security > Activity history.
Store my activity history on this device — Turn off. Activity history was designed for the Timeline feature, which gave you a scrollable view of what you’d been working on across devices. Timeline is no longer prominent in Windows 11, and there’s no remaining reason to generate this history if you don’t use it.
Send my activity history to Microsoft — Turn off (this is likely already off if you disabled storage, but confirm it separately).
Section 4: Search Permissions
Go to Settings > Privacy & security > Search permissions.
SafeSearch — Set per your preference. This controls whether search results in Windows Search are filtered.
Cloud content search — Toggle off “Microsoft account” and “Work or school account” if you don’t want Windows Search to pull results from your OneDrive, Outlook, SharePoint, or other Microsoft cloud services. This is particularly relevant if you’re using personal OneDrive storage — disabling this means Windows Search doesn’t index your cloud files locally.
Search history on this device — Turn off “Search history on this device” if you don’t want Windows storing a local record of your search queries.
Section 5: App Permissions
Go to Settings > Privacy & security and scroll down to “App permissions.”
This section lists every sensitive system resource — location, camera, microphone, contacts, calendar, call history, email, tasks, messaging, and more — and shows you which apps have access.
Work through these systematically:
Location — Turn off system-wide location access or, at minimum, review each app that has location access. Maps and weather apps may have a legitimate reason; most others don’t. “Let apps access your location” as a master toggle is worth considering.
Camera — Limit camera access to apps that genuinely need it. Many apps request camera access opportunistically.
Microphone — This is one of the most significant. Review carefully. Video calling apps, voice assistants, and some dictation tools have legitimate need. Others don’t. Consider turning off the master toggle and only enabling it for specific apps.
Contacts and Calendar — If you don’t use Windows Mail or another native app to manage contacts and calendar, turn off access entirely.
Documents, Pictures, Videos, Downloads — Windows asks for access to these folder categories separately for packaged (Store) apps. Review which apps have access to each.
For each category, you’ll see a list of apps that have requested access. Apps with “Off” next to them have been denied (or never requested). Apps showing access have been granted it — possibly at install time when you weren’t paying attention.
Section 6: Windows Recall
Go to Settings > Privacy & security > Recall & snapshots.
Windows Recall takes a screenshot of your screen every few seconds and stores it in a searchable local database. It’s off by default in current rollouts, but the setting can be enabled accidentally through first-run setup or system updates.
Confirm Recall is turned off. If you see “Saving snapshots” set to On, turn it off.
If you previously had Recall enabled and want to delete what it stored, there’s a “Delete all snapshots” option in this settings panel. Use it.
Section 7: Clipboard History and Cloud Sync
Go to Settings > System > Clipboard.
Clipboard history — When on, Windows keeps a history of things you’ve copied (text, images, files), accessible with Win+V. This includes passwords you’ve copied, account numbers, personal text, and anything else that passed through your clipboard. If you use a password manager that copies passwords to clipboard, this setting creates a local log of them. Evaluate whether the convenience is worth it; many users turn it off.
Sync across your devices — If clipboard history is on and you have multiple Windows devices, this option syncs clipboard content through Microsoft’s cloud. Turn off unless you specifically want this.
Section 8: Microsoft Account and OneDrive
If you use a Microsoft account (as opposed to a local account) on Windows 11, several additional data flows are active by default.
OneDrive auto-backup — Windows 11 strongly encourages backing up Desktop, Documents, and Pictures folders to OneDrive automatically. This is on by default if you signed in with a Microsoft account during setup. Check OneDrive settings (right-click the OneDrive icon in the system tray > Settings > Sync and backup > Manage backup) to see which folders are syncing. Files in those folders are being uploaded to Microsoft’s servers continuously.
If you’re using a dedicated file storage service for personal files and don’t want them doubled in OneDrive, disable auto-backup for the relevant folders.
OneDrive Personal Vault — OneDrive includes a “Personal Vault” folder with additional authentication. Note that OneDrive, including Personal Vault, uses Microsoft’s server-side encryption — not zero-knowledge encryption. Microsoft holds the encryption keys, which means files are accessible to Microsoft and can be provided in response to legal requests.
Section 9: Cortana and Search
Cortana is substantially reduced in Windows 11 compared to earlier Windows versions, but residual data collection from search personalization persists.
In Search settings (Settings > Privacy & security > Search permissions and Settings > Search > Searching Windows), consider:
- Disabling cloud content search if you don’t want search to include OneDrive results
- Setting Windows Search to search locally rather than using web results where possible
The Settings That Help the Most
If you only do a few things, prioritize these:
- Turn off the advertising ID (Privacy & security > General)
- Set diagnostics to Required only (Privacy & security > Diagnostics & feedback)
- Confirm Windows Recall is off (Privacy & security > Recall & snapshots)
- Review microphone and camera permissions (Privacy & security > App permissions)
- Check OneDrive auto-backup scope (OneDrive settings)
The rest of the settings add incremental benefit. But these five address the largest data flows for most users.
A Note on Windows Telemetry
It’s worth being clear about what you can’t fully disable: Windows 11 requires “Required diagnostic data” for system functionality and updates, and Microsoft has stated that there’s no supported way to fully disable telemetry while maintaining a functional, updated OS.
This is meaningfully different from, say, deciding not to use a particular app. The operating system itself maintains a data relationship with Microsoft that the user can narrow but not eliminate entirely.
This context matters for decisions about what you store locally on a Windows machine and how. Files on the device exist in an environment where the OS is generating some ongoing telemetry — not about the file contents, but about your activity patterns. For most people and most files, this is an acceptable tradeoff. For highly sensitive personal records, it’s worth factoring in.
The goal of these settings isn’t to achieve zero data sharing, which isn’t technically possible on Windows 11 as shipped. It’s to reduce unnecessary collection to the minimum consistent with a functioning machine — and to make sure the choices being made are yours, not defaults set at install time.