How to Revoke Third-Party Apps access to your Google Account

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For most people Google and its products/services are a big part of their life. Google Accounts control everything from your email accounts to payment services. Keeping these services safe is important. One way to do that is control what third-party apps and services have access to your Google account. If you have an app that no longer needs access or you accidentally granted access to your account you can revoke access.

To Give or Not to Give Access

Apps, websites, and some services require access to your Google account. Sometimes it just to authenicate and create an account for you. This process is faster than manually creating an account. By authenicating with Google you give that website/app permission to access your private information. Sites and apps may require limited or full access.

You will see permission requests such as these…

• Access to your basic profile information – When you see the button “Sign in with Google” on sites and apps. This button usually requires your name, email address, and profile picture.
• Requires Addition Information in Addition to Basic Information – Some sites and apps may require addition information other than the basic information. They may ask for permission to see and make a copy of the information in your account. This information could be your contacts, photos, YouTude playlists and more.
• Requires permission, edit, upload, & create content in you Google Account – There are some sites and apps that require full access to your account. In addition to the basic and addition information required, some sites and apps ask for permission to editing, upload, or create content.

Below is a list of Google Apps that websites may ask for permission…

• Gmail – Think about types of emails you receive. Do you have your banking records, have your medical records sent to your Gmail Account? When a website or app is granted access to Gmail, it has access to your contacts, every email in the inbox, attached documents and more.
• Photos – Anything you store in Google Photos, they can see. Even those private pictures, of your family, children, photo copies, and those private pictures you wanto no one to see. They can see them even if you have the folder set to private. Also think about if you use the GPS tagging setting. They can see where the pictures were taken!
• Drive – Do you backup or keep your medical records, financial records, work related projects you don’t anyone but you to see, and presenations on Google Drive? If so some websites and apps may want access to the drive.
• Contacts – Google Contacts is were your friends, family, favorite businesses, and work related numbers or stored. When you allow access, that means address,es phone numbers, contact information, and photos linked to the contact can be accessed.
• Calendar – The Google Calendar stores are you daily routine. This means websites and apps will know when you go to the doctor, when you are on vacation, kids events, and more.

Because of these types of permission you need to know who you are giving access to your account. For the most apps approved on iTunes stores, Android Store, and legimate businesses are safe (they might share your info with partner companies) to grant access. Just think about these companies and what they are doing with your info. T

hen there bad sites and apps out there that will take advantage of your account. So be careful with who you grant access to your account and always revoke access you unsafe and unused sites/apps.

Make sure you read the grant access box and read how they plan to use your account access and why they need it. While you are at ,make sure these companies are safe companies and not trying to take advantage of you.

How to Revoke Third-Party Apps access to your Google Account

Revoking access to third-party apps access to your Google account is easy. It takes only a few minutes. I would suggest do this at least once a month by going through your list of apps and websites and revoke access to any sites that you haven’t used in a few months.

To remove these steps follow the below steps.

1. Open your Google Account
2. On the left navigation panel, click on Security
3. On the Third-party apps with account access panel (your may be listed right under the title of this section, if not, click on Manage third-party access.
4. Then select the site or app you want to remove.
5. Select Remove Access.

Just the other day I had to use this process to remove access to a site, I did not feel they needed complete access to Google. They are safe company, but I decided it was better to log in manually instead. So I removed access. However, if this site would have been a bad or I felt Google needed to be aware of what they are doing, I would have reported the app using the report this app feature.

To do that, click on the link that takes to the apps you granted access to list. Select the the app in question. By clicking the app, the app info comes up. It tells you what permissions are needed. Toward the bottom of that app section you can click on a link to report it.