If you still have a Chrome Incognito window open, you may be able to use the “back” button to go back to previous web pages you had open.

Of course, you may be curious if you can see what you’ve been doing in Chrome while going incognito. In most cases, you need specialized software and knowledge to do so—like the parental control software we mentioned earlier, or some kind of workplace monitoring software.

However, there’s one thing you can try yourself: examining the contents of the DNS cache. To do this on Windows 10 or Windows 11, open a Terminal or Command Prompt window and run the following command:

ipconfig /displaydns

The command will print the contents of its DNS cache. For example, if you recently connected to google.com, you’ll see google.com in here. However, this cache is temporary—many entries expire in 24 hours, and the contents of the cache are wiped when you reboot your computer.

What you’re doing here is asking your computer if it sent any connection requests lately, either from the browser or another app. Your computer will then delve into its DNS cache—the place where it temporarily saves the history of these requests—and give you the results. However, note that we said “temporary:” the DNS cache is wiped every time the computer is rebooted.

How to Clear Incognito History

To clear the Incognito Mode history saved in Google Chrome, just close the Incognito Mode window.

To clear the DNS cache history, which may show websites you’ve accessed in Incognito Mode, you can flush your DNS cache. To do this, just reboot your computer or flush the Windows DNS cache with a command like  ipconfig /flushdns . You can also erase your DNS cache on macOS or flush DNS on Linux.

Other types of Incognito Mode history aren’t stored on your PC and you have to prevent them from being created in the first place. For example, consider getting a VPN and adopting the right browsing practices for anonymity. Ensure you’re not browsing on a device that is being monitored, like a work laptop with monitoring software.

How to Keep Incognito Mode Incognito

Naturally, as simple as this is, it’s cumbersome to have to do so every time you’ve used incognito mode. On top of that, it doesn’t solve the issue that your ISP or network admin can still see what you’ve been up to. Thankfully, there are some handy, easy-to-use tools that can solve all these issues in one fell swoop: virtual private networks.

These handy programs will reroute and secure your traffic, making it so nobody at the back end knows what you’re doing. A VPN and incognito mode go hand in hand, preventing your ISP or network administrator from seeing what websites you’re viewing and preventing Chrome from saving your browsing history. If the security and convenience of VPNs sounds like something you may be interested in, check out our selection of the best VPN services.