Google Gemini users report months of chat histories have vanished in widespread bug

Gemini users say their chat histories have quietly vanished

Complaints pile up from users after months of conversations disappear. Google insists it's just a temporary bug Over the past few days, complaints have stacked up from people who say months of conversations with Google's AI chatbot have simply vanished, with Reg readers noting the disappearances seemed to coincide with the rollout of Gemini 3.1. These complaints are echoed on Google's support forums, where one Gemini Pro user said that all their history had gone AWOL on both phone and desktop despite autodelete being set to keep chats for up to 18 months. They added that prompts still show up in activity logs - suggesting the data exists somewhere, just not where they need it. Another user complained that they were missing at least 15 chats with "no evidence in the activity log of them having ever existed," saying that the episode had them ready to jump ship to a rival model after years of tolerating Google's habit of abruptly breaking or binning services. Others reckon that the problem goes deeper than a simple interface hiccup. One user reported that recent chats had disappeared not just from Gemini but also from Google's My Activity archive, warning that if paid users lose work permanently, the fallout could be more than just angry forum posts. One forum has even tried to play unpaid support engineer, suggesting that the data may still be sitting on Google's servers and pointing to prompts visible in the Gemini activity page as evidence that the problem is more of a sync or "handshake" error than outright loss. They posted a laundry list of workarounds - from hard refreshes and forced logouts - but the replies suggest mileage varies wildly, with plenty of users saying the so-called fixes did nothing to coax their missing chats back. While some users have inevitably blamed the timing on the Gemini 3.1 rollout, there's no evidence beyond coincidence, and Google hasn't suggested anything more sinister than a bug. "We're currently fixing a bug that temporarily hid chat history for a small number of users," Google said. "Chat history for impacted users will be restored shortly. We know this is frustrating and are working quickly to resolve it." The complaints land barely a week after Google was already on the defensive over Gemini's behavior, following a report by a user who said the chatbot falsely claimed it had saved sensitive medical data to persistent memory before later admitting it had effectively told the user what they wanted to hear. Against that backdrop, disappearing chat histories feel less like an isolated glitch and more like another dent in confidence around how reliably the system handles user data. ®

Did your Gemini chat history vanish? You're not alone

Corbin Davenport is the News Editor at How-To Geek and an independent software developer. He also runs Tech Tales, a technology history podcast. Send him an email at [email protected]! Corbin previously worked at Android Police, PC Gamer, and XDA before joining How-To Geek. He has over a decade of experience writing about tech, and has worked on several web apps and browser extensions. Google Gemini is supposed to maintain a record of your conversations, so you can search through them later or use them as context in new chats. Unfortunately, Gemini's chat history is disappearing for some people. There are many reports on Google's support forums about Gemini Chat history not appearing, including both the left side panel in the Gemini web app and the Gemini Apps page in My Google Activity. The bug seems unrelated to your auto-delete settings, or the conversation being a Gem or a regular Gemini chat. One person replied in a forum thread, "Four days later, the 'pro' paid service is still down. I sure hope they reimburse paid subscribers from this 'small issue' rather than sweep it under the rug." An additional report explained, "I have tried looking on my phone and computer chrome browser, but all of my history is gone. I have changed the auto-delete so it never deletes, but even before that it was set to 18 months and I have had Gemini for less than a year." Another person said, "My Gemini chat history went missing on the morning of [February] 19th, but it all came back by this morning, the 22nd." Thankfully, Google is aware of the problem and working on a solution. A statement on the support forums said, "We're currently fixing a bug that temporarily hid chat history for a small number of users. Chat history for impacted users will be restored shortly. We know this is frustrating and are working quickly to resolve it." Related Google Will Let You Use Gemini Without Recording Your Activity You probably already know that voice assistants are quietly recording everything we say to them. However, Google's Gemini app is getting a privacy tweak that you'll want to know about -- and it's not bad news. Posts By Joe Fedewa Google didn't mention how the problem happened. The Gemini 3.1 Pro model was rolled out around the same time as the first reports, but that could be entirely unrelated to the current bug. A few people have reported the problem as solved, so if you noticed some missing chats, check Gemini again. It doesn't seem like my (free) account was ever affected by the bug, but I only used Gemini a few times during the height of the outage reports. Subscribe to our newsletter for AI product bug coverage Curious how Gemini's disappearing chat history impacts users and how companies respond? Subscribing to our newsletter offers clear, focused coverage of AI product issues -- bug reports, official statements, and the practical implications for users. Subscribe By subscribing, you agree to receive newsletter and marketing emails, and accept our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You can unsubscribe anytime. Even though Google is working on a fix, it doesn't seem to be fully rolled out yet. One person on the support forum said yesterday, "My chat history got restored for awhile, then it's gone again, very frustrating..." Source: Google via The Register