Clark Howard

How to hear and delete everything your Amazon Alexa has recorded

Is Alexa listening in on more than she should be? It's a question millions of Amazon Echo owners may be asking after a story about an unusual eavesdropping situation made headlines.

KIRO-TV reports that a woman says Alexa — Amazon's virtual assistant — recorded a conversation in her home and sent it to someone in her family's contact list.

An employee of her husband apparently received an audio file of them talking about hardwood floors.

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Amazon device recorded a private conversation and sent it to someone

In a statement, Amazon confirmed that the incident happened. The company said the Echo interpreted a word in the background conversation as “Alexa” — which makes the device wake up.

Amazon went on to say that the device interpreted the conversation as a “send message” request.

“As unlikely as this string of events is, we are evaluating options to make this case even less likely,” Amazon said in the statement, which you can read in full on KIRO’s website.

The woman said she unplugged all of her Amazon devices and asked for a refund.

Amazon Alexa: How to listen to your recordings and delete them forever

Now that you have the back story, you may want to know exactly what Alexa has been recording in your home! Here’s how to find out…

From the Alexa app, click on “Settings”

Scroll down and select “History” 

Review Alexa recordings, especially those with “Text not available” 

Listen to recordings and delete them individually 

You have another option… 

If you’ve had an Amazon Echo for a long time, you could spend hours going through each individual recording from every time you shouted “Alexa” across the room!

To delete all voice recordings at once, visit the "Manage Your Content and Devices" page at Amazon.com.

From there, click on the “Your Devices” tab, select an Alexa-enabled product and click “Manage voice recordings” to find the delete option.

Amazon’s FAQ page says you can also contact customer service to have your recordings deleted.

The company says it keeps voice recordings to learn your voice and how you speak to improve the accuracy of the results that your device provides.

As a result, Amazon says that deleting voice recordings could degrade your Alexa experience.

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