Review third party applications connected to an account

Find the connections that outlived their purpose

A calendar helper you tried once may still be connected to your Google Account after you stop opening it. Reviewing those connections gives you a useful question to answer: which services still need a route into this account, and for what task?

This guide covers a personal Google Account in a web browser. It reviews account connections, separate from your phone’s camera permissions or a website’s notification settings. You can do the inventory without removing anything. Start with one account and one retired service rather than disconnecting everything at once.

Keep a short private note with four headings: app, purpose, access, decision. Write the account’s email address at the top so a later review cannot confuse a personal account with another one. Avoid putting passwords, recovery codes, or copies of private documents in that note.

Open Google’s list and read one entry closely

Use the linked apps page linked from Google’s connection-management instructions. Sign in if asked and verify the account shown before proceeding.

1. Select Access to your Google Account, choose an app, then See details. The Access to filter can narrow the list to a Google product or Other account access.
2. Read the permissions and copy their meaning into your note. Where several connection types exist, look for the section saying the app has some access to your Google Account.
3. Record the task that still needs this connection. If you cannot name one, mark the entry for investigation rather than inventing a justification from the app’s name.

Work through unfamiliar entries before deciding they are malicious. A name may belong to an old service you used under different branding. Check your own saved login records and receipts for context; use the service’s independently located website for further investigation. Do not follow an unexpected “restore access” email to settle the question.

If the list looks surprisingly empty, recheck the signed-in address. A successful review of one Google Account says nothing about a second account’s connections. Keep their notes separate, even when the same service appears in both.

Ask which way the connection works

Google’s Sign in with Google privacy explanation says the sign-in feature shares your name, email address, and profile picture with permission. It does not give the developer your Google password. Additional access to Google data is a separate request, so a familiar sign-in button alone does not establish what the service can read.

According to Google’s account-data access guide, permissions can allow basic profile access, viewing and copying information, or managing data. Management can include creating, editing, uploading, or deleting information. Calendar-only authorization does not by itself authorize access to your other Google products.

Read the actual verbs. A service that can display appointments and a service that can delete appointments pose different practical questions. For each, ask what would stop working if access ended and whether you still want that feature. Familiar branding is useful context, but it does not explain why an unused feature needs continuing permission.

A linked account can also run in the other direction: Google may have access to your account at another service. Treat that as a separate relationship. Your decision should identify the intended direction before you touch a removal control.

Remove the relationship you intended to end

Before changing sign-in for a service you still need, open that service’s own account settings. Check whether it offers another way into the same account and verify it before relying on it. Google’s linked-app troubleshooting guidance warns that some services do not support different sign-in methods for the same account.

1. For access to Google data, use the app’s access details, select Remove access, then Confirm.
2. For Google sign-in, select Sign in with Google, the app, and See details. Choose Stop using Sign in with Google, then Confirm.
3. For Google’s access to another service, select Linked account and the app. Under Google’s access section, choose See details, Delete link, then Confirm.

These are different operations. Read the confirmation before accepting it, especially when an entry has several relationships. Then return to the list and inspect the relevant detail again. Record which relationship ended; the app’s name alone is an insufficient completion record.

Leave the next entry alone until you understand the first result. That makes a broken feature easier to associate with a specific change. If you are uncertain about the confirmation’s scope, cancel and return to inspection.

Verify the result without promising an erasure

Removing account-data access prevents further access through that grant, but it does not retrieve copies already held by the developer. Google’s access guide says you may need to contact the developer to request deletion. Revocation also does not reverse edits or deletions the app already made.

Stopping Google sign-in ends that sign-in relationship; it does not delete the service’s account or the information you previously supplied. Google’s sign-in privacy guidance explains that the developer’s retention policy governs what it keeps. If your goal is leaving the service entirely, review its export, account-deletion, and data-deletion process separately.

Make the completion note precise: “Calendar access removed; developer deletion request still pending” is useful. “App deleted” could mean uninstalling software, closing a service account, or revoking a grant, and hides unfinished work. Check any paid subscription separately rather than assuming an access change settles billing.

You do not need to grant access again merely to test whether removal worked. Inspect the account record first. If you open the old feature afterward and it requests authorization, declining that request preserves your decision; accepting it creates a new permission decision.

When a useful feature breaks

If you intentionally removed a trusted service’s access and later need it, start from its genuine app or website. Use its connection setup, choose the intended Google Account, and review the requested permissions again. Reconnection is a fresh authorization, not an undo that guarantees the earlier scope or restores lost data.

If you can reach Google services but cannot enter the other service, separate those two problems. Google’s troubleshooting guide explains that the accounts remain distinct and directs users to the developer for service-account problems. Avoid creating a replacement account until you understand whether it would strand purchases or files in the original.

For a routine cleanup, finish with a dated list of kept connections and their purposes. Revisit it when retiring another service or receiving a new permission request. If unfamiliar access accompanies signs of account compromise, follow Google’s compromised-account guidance linked from its troubleshooting page; connection cleanup alone is not a complete recovery.