Google Ads Change History: Who Changed What and When
Every edit to a Google Ads account leaves a record: who made it, with which tool, and what the old and new values were. This guide covers where to find change history, how to filter it, what it records and what it leaves out, how far back it goes, and when Google lets you undo a change.
This guide uses Google Ads Help: About change history, Review your account history and Revert bulk actions with Undo, plus the Google Ads Editor and Google Ads API pages linked below. Checked on 8 November 2026.
What change history is for
Google describes change history as a tool that "lists the changes made to your account, campaigns, and ad groups during the past 2 years." Data older than 2 years is not available. It answers the questions that come up whenever results move: when was this campaign paused, who added that keyword, what was the budget last month?
It matters most when several people or tools touch one account. If you have given others access with their own login, the history shows which of them made each change. It also lists changes made by automated rules, the Google Ads API and Google Ads Editor, so a change nobody remembers making usually has a source you can trace.
Where to find it
Google's path for the whole account: go to Change history within the Campaigns menu. The "Change overview" area has 3 tabs:
- By user: the most recent change made to the account, and who made it.
- By campaign: changes to each campaign, the volume of changes in a period, a summary of the most recent changes, with filters for date and user.
- Performance: an overview of performance with insight annotations.
Pick the date range in the upper right corner. Use the "Views" bar at the top to choose the scope: all campaigns, one campaign (click its name) or one campaign type. On a smaller screen you may need to expand that panel with the arrow icon. Click the arrow next to a change to see its details.
For a single campaign or ad group, Google gives a second route: on the Campaigns or Ad groups page, tick the checkbox next to it and click Change history in the blue bar above the table. The changes for the selected date range open in a panel on the right.
Smart campaigns have their own view. Google's Smart campaign change history page says it is available only on the web version of Google Ads: select the Smart campaign in the Campaigns list and choose Change history in the blue bar. Google notes it shows changes made by the account owner, and you may also see some changes made by a Google support agent if you contacted Google about your ad.
Filtering by campaign, user, tool and change type
Below the "Change overview" table sits a row of change type filters. Click one to show only that kind of change. Some filters open secondary options: the Date filter, for example, lets you filter by date range, day of the week or month. The filter options Google lists are:
- Campaign and Ad group: the ones that changed
- Change type: the kind of change made
- User: who made it
- Tool: the tool used to make it
- Item changed: specific items
- Campaign experiment: experiments that changed
The User and Tool filters are the quickest way to separate your own edits from those of a colleague, an agency, a rule or a third-party tool.
What is recorded, and what is not
Google lists these change types:
| Change type | What it covers (Google's description) |
|---|---|
| Ad | Creating, editing, pausing, resuming or removing an ad |
| Asset | Asset changes |
| Audience | Changes to audience targeting |
| Budget | Campaign budgets and budget allocations |
| Bidding | Ad group bids, bid limits, strategy target bids, strategy type and keyword bids |
| Conversions | Creating, editing or removing conversion actions |
| Feed | Creating, removing or updating a feed |
| Keyword | Adding, pausing, resuming or removing keywords; keyword max CPC or landing page |
| Language, Location, Targeting | Language targeting and advanced location targeting |
| Network | The ad networks a campaign targets |
| Status | Pausing, resuming or removing a campaign, ad group, keyword or ad |
| Other changes | Account settings such as billing information, payment methods and notifications |
Gaps Google states itself:
- Password changes are not tracked, for security.
- Some account-level setting changes and changes made by Google representatives during consultations are sometimes not listed.
- Large changes show fewer details. The page limits the details shown per entry; Google recommends smaller changes, ideally affecting fewer than 2,000 entities, if you want to see everything.
- Anything older than 2 years is gone.
If a change seems to be missing, Google suggests clearing your browser's cache and cookies or using a private window first, as it may be a temporary display issue.
Reading the User column
- An email address: the person who made the change in the Google Ads interface.
- "Google Ads system" or names like "ads-dartsearch-budget": automated or internal Google systems. Google says these are typically maintenance or auto-generated targets and usually do not alter active campaign settings or performance. With Search Ads 360, "ads-dartsearch-budget" entries may come from a "Plan schedule" setting that you can turn off in the SA360 plan settings.
- "Google Ads API" or a tool name: a change made through the API, for example by a third-party tool.
If an agency or freelancer manages your account, each person should sign in with their own Google account rather than a shared login. Otherwise every change shows the same email and the history cannot tell you who did what.
Linking changes to performance
Google maps each change onto a timeline of account data such as impressions, clicks, conversions, clickthrough rate and cost, so you can see which changes may have contributed to a shift in results. Two features help:
- The Performance tab in the change overview, with its insight annotations.
- Go to: tick the changes you are interested in, click Go to, and pick ad group or campaign. Google Ads opens a filtered list of only the campaigns or ad groups those changes affected, so you can compare their results before and after.
A change and a result on the same day do not prove one caused the other: seasonality, competitors and tracking issues move numbers too. For a cleaner answer when it matters, test a change with an experiment rather than reading it off the timeline.
Undoing changes
Google says you can undo most types of changes made in the last 30 days. The steps:
- On the change history page, find the row with the changes you want to reverse.
- Click Undo in the "User / Date & Time" column and confirm in the pop-up.
- The column then reads "Changes undone".
Points to know first:
- If one row lists several changes, Undo reverts all of them together.
- Some changes cannot be undone, for example if a related item has been removed since, or someone else has already undone it since you last refreshed the page. Those rows read "Changes can't be undone".
- After 30 days, change the setting back by hand, using the old value the history shows.
Bulk edits, copy and paste, automated rules and bulk uploads have a separate Undo under Tools > Bulk actions > All bulk actions, in the Actions column. Google explains that this creates a new bulk change that restores the values from before that bulk action, regardless of later bulk edits, and deleted items cannot be reverted. Once an undo has been tried, successful or not, the option is hidden. Rules also have their own undo; see our automated rules guide.
Changes posted from Google Ads Editor are different. Google's Revert changes page says Editor can revert edits only before you post them; after posting "there's no way to undo the changes automatically", but you can import an archive file exported beforehand.
Change history through the API
Developers and reporting tools read similar data through two Google Ads API resources:
- Change Event gives field-level detail: all new values for a create, old and new values for an update, the client type used and the user. Queries must stay within the past 30 days and return at most 10,000 rows. Google says it may not include every row from the web Change History, and it does not return Google Ads Editor changes.
- Change Status lists which resources were added, changed or removed, keeping only the latest change per resource. Queries must use a date within the past 90 days and a limit of at most 10,000 results.
Both pages say a change can take up to 3 minutes to appear. For checks that run inside the account, our Google Ads scripts guide covers the scripting side.
A simple review routine
This is our suggestion, not a Google rule:
- Weekly: open the By user tab and check that every user and tool you see is one you expect. Anything unfamiliar is a reason to review account access.
- When results move: set the date range a week or two before the shift, filter by Budget, Bidding and Status first, and use Go to to compare the affected campaigns.
- After applying recommendations: note the date, then watch the Performance tab. Our recommendations and optimization score guide explains what auto-apply can change.
- Before a large edit: split it into smaller batches (Google's guidance is under 2,000 entities) so the history stays readable, and mark the items with labels so you can filter them later.
- Within 30 days: if a change was a mistake, undo it while you still can.
Frequently asked questions
How far back does Google Ads change history go?
2 years. Google says data older than 2 years is not available.
Can I see who made a change?
Yes. The User column shows the email of the person who made it in the Google Ads interface, or a system or tool name for automated, Google or API changes.
How long can I undo a change?
Google says most types of changes made in the last 30 days can be undone from the change history page, unless a related item was removed or someone already undid it.
Does change history include Google Ads Editor and automated rules?
Yes. Google says it also shows changes made through automated rules, the Google Ads API and Google Ads Editor.
Why is a change missing?
Google notes that some account-level setting changes and changes by Google representatives during consultations are sometimes not listed, password changes are never tracked, and large changes show fewer details. Try clearing your cache or a private window first.
Change history is easier to read in a well-run account. See our Google Ads basics guide, our website development service and all our services, or email [email protected].