How to Reset or Delete Your Android Advertising ID

The first time I realized how specific phone tracking was, I had just finished talking to a friend about a very niche brand of Japanese denim. Twenty minutes later, an ad for that exact store popped up in a free weather app. It wasn't magic, and no, your phone probably isn't "listening" in the way people think. It's your Advertising ID. This is a unique string of numbers assigned to your Android phone that allows advertisers to build a profile of who you are. They know which apps you open, how long you use them, and what you're interested in. It's like wearing a name tag that tells every shop you enter exactly what you bought in the last store. I prefer to stay anonymous, and luckily, Google has made it much easier to either scramble that ID or throw the name tag away entirely.

What the advertising ID is

Think of the Advertising ID (or GAID) as a digital footprint. Every time you download a game or a social media app, that app looks at this ID. If you use "App A" to look for hiking gear and "App B" to look for local trails, the advertisers behind those apps can see the same ID in both places. They realize, "Hey, User 8f39-22-abc is a hiker," and they start hitting you with ads for boots. It's a way for the industry to track you across different companies' products without knowing your actual name or email address.

The problem is that over months or years, that profile becomes incredibly accurate. It knows where you shop, what your hobbies are, and potentially your political leanings or health concerns based on the apps you use. On older versions of Android, you could only "reset" it, which just gave you a new number. But since Android 12, Google allows you to delete it so that apps only see a string of zeros. This is a huge win for privacy, though it doesn't stop ads entirely—it just makes them less eerily specific to your life.

Deleting it entirely

If you want to stop the cross-app tracking, your best bet is to delete the ID. On a Google Pixel or any phone running "stock" Android 13, 14, or 15, go to Settings and scroll down to Google. From there, tap on Ads. You'll see an option that says Delete advertising ID. Tap it, confirm your choice, and that's it. From now on, any app that tries to look up your ID will just see a bunch of zeros.

On a Samsung Galaxy (One UI 6), the path is slightly different. Go to Settings > Security and privacy > More privacy settings > Ads. The option is the same once you get there. I found that after doing this, the ads I saw became more "generic." Instead of seeing the exact pair of shoes I looked at yesterday, I started seeing ads for life insurance or soda. It's a little annoying to see irrelevant ads, but I find it much less "creepy" than the alternative. One caveat: some apps might still track you using their own internal login systems (like Facebook or Amazon), so this isn't a total "invisibility cloak," but it cuts off the middleman.

Resetting if you can't delete

Maybe you don't want to delete it entirely because you actually like getting ads for things you might buy, but you feel like your current "profile" is a bit too cluttered or inaccurate. Or perhaps you're on a much older version of Android that doesn't offer the delete option. In the same Ads menu mentioned above, you'll see Reset advertising ID. When you tap this, your phone generates a brand-new random string of numbers.

To an advertiser, you effectively become a brand-new person. It's like moving to a new city where nobody knows your reputation. I usually suggest doing this every few months if you decide not to delete the ID. It keeps the data brokers from building a decade-long history of your habits. On my old Galaxy S10, I used to do this religiously until I finally upgraded and could just turn the whole thing off for good.

Opting out of personalised ads

Even after you delete your ID, there are a few more toggles that help keep Google's own ad systems at bay. Under that same Google > Ads menu, you might see Enable debug logging for ads. Make sure that is turned OFF. You should also tap on Ads Privacy (this is more common on Android 14/15). This section contains three important sub-menus: Ad topics, App-suggested ads, and Ad measurement.

I suggest turning all of these off. Ad topics is a newer feature where Android basically looks at your apps and decides you're into "Fitness" or "Cooking" and shares that interest with apps. By disabling these, you're telling the operating system itself to stop trying to categorize you for the sake of advertisers. It takes about two minutes to flip these switches, and while it won't stop Google from knowing what you search for on their site, it significantly limits what they share with the broader world of third-party app developers.