How to See and Delete Diagnostic Data Collected by Windows 10

Privacy is one of the biggest concerns among netizens. Nowadays, almost every popular application implements some type of data collection (a.k.a telemetry) system in the name of improving and enhancing the software. But, we as general users either are not aware of this functionality or just don't know what data is being collected. If you're a Windows 10 user, you must know that a ton of diagnostic data is generated and passed on to Microsoft for so-called improving the operating system. If you're not comfortable with it and want to stop it altogether, there's no easy way to do it. The operating system does provide some options to limit this functionality but there's nothing to stop it completely. This guide is all about viewing this diagnostic data and selectively deleting it. The application to do all this is provided by Microsoft but most of us are not aware of it. If you find this a bit technical, you may choose to completely omit it. So, let's get started and manage the diagnostic data collected by Windows 10.

Though the activities mentioned below are safe, I'll still recommend creating a restore point before going ahead. This ensures you can revert in case of a mishap, though the chances are almost negligible.

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If you're running Windows 11, you can use this tool (mentioned below) to manage data viewing and deletion. It works on both versions of Windows. Without any further delay, let's get started!

Enable Diagnostic Data Viewer

To view the diagnostic data collected by Windows 10, first, you need to enable an option. To do that, go to Settings → Privacy → Diagnostics & feedback and enable the data viewing option as shown below.

Once enabled, you can click the Open Diagnostic Data Viewer button to open the app. If it's already not installed, you'll be diverted to the Microsoft Store to install it. Complete the installation process and launch the app.

By default, a space of 1GB is allocated for these diagnostic records. But you can increase this limit right within the app.

To do so, go to the app's settings and select the data log size from the dropdown menu. Be aware that increasing the log size may affect the performance of your Windows device.

So, if you're running a low-end computer or multitask extensively with CPU-intensive applications, I'll recommend sticking with the default data log size.

Once, you're satisfied with the log size, you can browse the data records and can view each one of them as shown above. Though most of it is technical, you can analyze and deduce the type of data being collected and sent to the Microsoft servers.

Depending on the settings already configured, the type and amount of data records may differ in your app. Feel free to examine these records. You can even search for keywords within these records to find the information you're looking for.

To delete the diagnostic data, go to Settings → Privacy → Diagnostics & feedback → Delete diagnostic data option and click the Delete button.

I've closely inspected many of these records and found that no personally identifiable information (PII) is collected. So it appears in these records but you never know.