Don't want Google using your Gmail or Photos info for ads? Here's how to stop it

“We don’t use your Gmail or Photos for ads” is one of Google’s longest-standing privacy promises. But with a recent policy change, that’s no longer entirely true. If you’ve turned on Personal Intelligence — the feature that lets Gemini and Search dig through your Gmail, Photos, and Drive for personalized answers — that same data can now shape the ads you see. Yes, it’s a big change, but thankfully, you have the option to opt out.

Google’s Personal Intelligence now has a privacy cost

Personal Intelligence is one of the main things that makes Gemini and AI Mode so helpful. It can access information from your Gmail, Google Drive, Google Photos, and other Workspace apps, and this cross-app reasoning is what enables it to give more relevant answers. For instance, you can ask it for your car’s tire size, and it can pull the answer from an old email, saving you the hassle of digging through your inbox yourself. But that whole convenience now comes with a big asterisk.

Before October 16, Google’s privacy policy was clear about not using your data for ads: “We don’t show you personalized ads based on your content from Drive, Gmail, or Photos.” That line is technically still in the policy, but Google has tacked on a clause right after it — “unless you choose to make data from these services available to other Google services that support personalized ads.”

This means when you use Personal Intelligence to get answers about your emails or photos, the updated policy allows data from those connected services to inform the ads you see. In simpler words, if you use AI Mode with Personal Intelligence enabled, Google may use signals from those interactions to personalize the ads it serves you.

The policy does draw a distinction, though. Google says it’s still not directly scanning your inbox or photo library to choose ads for you, nor is it sharing this data with third-party companies. So no, you don’t have to worry about those things, if that’s any consolation.

How to stop Google from using Gmail and Photos data for ads

The only good news in all of this is that you can opt out. If you don’t want Google using your Personal Intelligence data to shape your ads, here’s what you can do.

1. Go to any Google site, click your profile icon in the top right corner, and choose Manage your Google account.
2. Select the Data & privacy tab in the left pane.
3. Click Personalization settings under the Personalization & activity section.
4. Click Manage Personalized Recommendations in Search services.
5. Under Additional Personal Intelligence, choose Connected Content Apps.
6. Click the Connected button next to Google Workspace and Google Photos to stop Search from accessing your data.

Once you do this, you won’t see personalized results when you use AI Mode. However, this doesn’t stop you from accessing Gmail or Photos data through the Gemini app. You can still ask Gemini to dig through those services, and that data from Gemini isn’t used for ads.

While disconnecting Google Workspace and Google Photos, you’ll see a prompt warning you that this doesn’t stop Google from using existing data that’s already collected. It can still use that for ads. If that bothers you, though, head to the Search Services History page and delete your data from there.

Turning off Personalised Recommendations promises more privacy

Disconnecting Gmail and Photos from Personal Intelligence is a good step for privacy, but it only closes one door. If you really want to stop feeding your data into Google’s ecosystem, there’s a bigger lever, which is Personalized Recommendations.

This is what services like Search, Maps, Shopping, Flights, and Hotels, have always relied upon to show you results that are relevant to you. It includes your previous searches, preferences, activity on Google sites, and even third-party sites you’ve linked to your Google account. To be fair, this is what helps you see relevant YouTube recommendations and articles in Google Discover. Personalized Recommendations is also the main reason the search results vary from one person to another.

Unlike Personal Intelligence, which only pulls data from your Google apps, Personalized Recommendations pulls pretty much everything Google knows about you. If you don’t want that, it’s possible to turn that off, too. Open your Google account settings, head to Data & privacy > Personalized settings > Personalized Recommendations in Search services, and turn it off.

Once you do this, you’ll stop getting personalized search results and responses based on your personal activity across the board. This, however, doesn’t stop Search from using things like your location, age, and previous searches. So it’s not like those search results or recommendations will be completely irrelevant.

Convenience or privacy — you choose

Personalized Intelligence is a genuinely useful feature — there are no two ways about it. But the ad clause attached to it isn’t something most people would’ve agreed to if Google had actually asked. Now that you know it’s there, the rest is up to you. You can disconnect the apps, kill Personalized Recommendations, or decide the convenience is worth it.