How to check your digital footprint

There are two ways you can check your digital footprint:

1. You can search manually and, for example, Google yourself.
2. You can use automated tools like dedicated footprint- and exposure-checkers.

And yes, you can do both for free.

Let’s get to it: step by step.

How do I find my own digital footprint?

Before we get into the details, here’s a quick overview of your available options. 

You can also treat these as a checklist of what to do to check your digital footprint.

Manual methods
1) Google yourself (and your online usernames)	2) Audit your social media	3) Verify app permissions
4) Review your saved passwords	5) Search your email	6) Check data brokers sites

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	Automated methods
1) Digital footprint checkers	2) Dark web scanners	3) Google Alerts

Now, let’s take a closer look at each.

Manual methods

Checking your digital footprint manually has one key advantage: it’s always free.

The catch? It may take hours and the results won’t be complete. 

But it’s still recommended to put in a little effort. Why? A manual search lets you find your active digital footprint—that is, the data you voluntarily shared online.

Think social media, old accounts, forums, etc.

Automated tools let you focus on your passive digital footprint.

1) Google yourself

Running your name past various search engines is generally a good place to start.

It won’t show you everything, but you’ll get a peek at how many sites keep your footprints.

1) Go to Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other search engines.

2) Type in your name in quotation marks, like this: 

“John Doe” 

3) For more results, add your email address, date of birth, and phone number, like this: 

“John Doe” OR “+1-307-410-6456” OR “[email protected]” OR “12.12.2008”

4)  Don’t forget about the online accounts where you used a username instead of your real name.

Note: You can use your browser’s private search (like Incognito mode in Google Chrome) to get better results.

These aren’t all the ways you can use Google to look for your digital footprint.

Operators such as “site:” and “filetype:” can help you reach even deeper. If you’d like to learn how to use them, have a look at our guide.

2) Audit your social media

Social media platforms are likely the biggest aggregators of your digital footprint.

Things like your personal info, comments, and even followed pages all add up to your active digital footprint.

Audit your social accounts for such “leftovers” from your activity there. Check your profile page, and if you’d like to reduce your footprint, remove content you no longer need.

Focus on:

• Pictures you’re tagged in
• Personal info added to your profile
• Your own posts
• Content you’ve commented on, liked, or shared
• Groups you’re a member of
• Pages you follow.

Note: On Facebook you can use the “view your profile as” option to see what content is visible to the general public.

All of these add up and could even be enough to build a detailed profile of you.

On top of that, consider switching your profile from “public” to “private.”

3) Verify app permissions

Apps nowadays are primarily made with convenience in mind.

Often, that goal is reached by making the registration process as easy as possible—and for that, you can use your other socials like Google, Facebook, or Apple ID to create accounts.

Each time you use this option, you allow these apps to gain access to your data—potentially expanding your digital footprint.

Now, it’s time to verify which apps have access to your socials.

For most smartphones (Android and iOS): Go to “settings” → “apps” → “permissions.”

You’ll have to check each app one by one. And while you’re at it, you can deny access to your socials for the apps you no longer use.

4) Review your saved passwords

Another way to dig out your data leftovers is to review your online accounts. Each such account has at least some of your information—that data is part of your digital footprint.

And here’s a quick way to check your accounts: take a look at your saved passwords. 

They can be in a dedicated app, like Bitwarden, a native feature of your browser, or in your Google account.

Evaluate which accounts you still need and which can be deleted.

• Microsoft Edge: Go to “settings” → “passwords and autofill” → “Microsoft password manager.”
• In Firefox: Go to “settings” → “privacy & security” → “passwords.”
• In Safari: Go to “settings” → “passwords.” 
• In Chrome: Go to “settings” → “passwords and autofill” → “Google password manager.”
• In your Google account: Go to “manage your Google account” → “security and sign-in” → “Google password manager.”

Note: The password manager in Chrome and your Google account are the same thing. You can choose whichever way is easiest for you.

5) Search your email

Searching your email is another method to discover old accounts. And you’ve got two ways you can go at it.

Start by looking for accounts linked to your email address.

• Gmail: “security” → “your connections to third-party apps & services”
• Outlook: “privacy” → “apps and services”
• Yahoo: “recent activity” → “connected apps & devices”
• Apple: Apple ID → “sign in with Apple.”

Then, if you haven’t cleared your inbox in a while, search it for keywords typical for newly opened accounts, like “welcome,” “verify,” “confirm,” “order,” “password,” and “subscription.”

And while you’re at it, you can also check sign-ins with socials like Facebook.

Here is a more detailed overview of how you can find accounts linked to your email.

6) Check data brokers sites

Have you heard of people search sites, people finder sites, and similar?

These are websites operated by data brokers that essentially function as huge databases of individuals—composed of as many bits of personal information as brokers have managed to find.

You could even consider them a sort of “summary of your digital footprint,” because all the data there is a result of scripts scavenging the web for your information.

But the moment your profile has been composed and shared online, it becomes a digital footprint on its own.

To check what data brokers have stored on you, you need to run searches for your name on their websites.

Here are a few to start with:

• spokeo.com
• beenverified.com
• peoplefinders.com
• radaris.com
• unitedstatesphonebook.com
• usphonebook.com. 

There’s one issue, though. There are hundreds of data brokers operating in the US. Going through them one by one can quickly turn into a titanic effort.

The good news is that there are services specializing in scanning data brokers for your data and removing it from their records. We’ll talk more about that in the next section.

Automated methods

Using dedicated tools to check your digital footprint makes the task much easier. But that’s not the only advantage.

Take dark web scanners, for example—within seconds they can scan the so-called “data dumps” of breached info looking for your details.

They’re fast, thorough, and wide-reaching. You can cover data brokers, the dark web, and the “regular” web.

On top of that, most of them are free.

But—

These methods are very effective at finding your passive digital footprint—that is, data that’s been gathered about you without your direct input or knowledge.

They won’t do much good for locating your active digital footprint. For that, sadly, you’ll have to put in some effort yourself.

Let’s see what we’ve got here.

1) Digital footprint checkers

Remember the data broker sites we mentioned earlier and the problem that comes with them?

Well, tools like digital footprint checkers/scanners are the solution.

These are pretty much dedicated data broker scanners. In most cases, you just need to put your name in and within minutes you receive a comprehensive report on how many brokers have your data, what risks it may pose, and more.

The best part? It’s free.

Here are some worth trying:

• Digital footprint checker by Incogni
• Exposure report by Optery
• Digital footprint scanner by Onerep
• Digital footprint scanner by DeleteMe.

Note: No scanner can reach all data brokers. For the most comprehensive results, we recommend using a few of them, as the brokers they cover don’t always overlap.

2) Dark web scanners

What digital footprint checkers do across data brokers, dark web scanners do in the realm of the dark web. And it’s bittersweet.

Here’s the bitter part: you don’t have to ever enter the dark web for your data to end up there—hackers and scammers use it as a sort of “marketplace” for personal information. One data breach, and your details are exposed.

We went into more detail about the dark web and how to locate your data there in this article.

To make matters worse, you can’t remove your data from the dark web. There are no regulations, no guidelines, no privacy policies—it’s the Wild West of the internet.

The sweet part: knowing what data of yours is exposed on the dark web can really help improve your privacy and security—if you know your email’s been breached, you can take countermeasures and, for example, change your password to a much stronger one.

And dark web scanners are essentially the only way to get an overview of how much of your digital footprint is lying around on the dark web.

Here’s one we recommend: Have I Been Pwned. 

It’s free, it’s safe, and it’s effective.

And here are some alternatives:

• Dark web scan by Experian
• Dark web scan by Keeper Security
• Dark web monitoring by Microsoft Defender
• Dark web monitoring by Norton
• Dark web monitoring by LastPass.

Note: A dark web scan and dark web monitoring aren’t the same service. A scan is a one-time search, whereas monitoring is a continuous service with alerts and other benefits.

3) Google Alerts

So far we’ve covered how to check your digital footprint across data brokers and the dark web.

But how about the regular web?

Here, you can use a service called Google Alerts. It’s essentially a scanner, but one that focuses on all websites indexed by Google.

Apart from one-time scans, you can also set alerts for specific keywords, like your name, email address, and so on—and you’ll be notified whenever something new comes up.

What to do once you’ve checked your digital footprint

Found something you’re not happy about? Here’s what you can do.

Delete unused accounts

If you find old accounts you no longer use, delete them. Most platforms let you do this from account settings. If you can’t find the option, JustDeleteMe has direct links for hundreds of services.

Tighten your privacy settings

For accounts you do want to keep, review who can see your content. Switch profiles from “public” to “friends only” where possible, and remove personal details you don’t need to share publicly.

Opt out of data brokers

Data brokers won’t remove your information on their own—you have to “ask.”

Most brokers have an opt-out process, but it’s tedious: each one requires a separate request, and many will re-add your data over time.

A dedicated data removal service like Incogni handles this automatically—sending removal requests to over 420 data brokers and following up when needed. 

If you’d rather not do it manually, it’s worth a look.