diff --git a/doc/help/settings.asciidoc b/doc/help/settings.asciidoc
index cb8e1a44d..2e0783110 100644
--- a/doc/help/settings.asciidoc
+++ b/doc/help/settings.asciidoc
@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@
 |<<general-auto-save-interval,auto-save-interval>>|How often (in milliseconds) to auto-save config/cookies/etc.
 |<<general-editor,editor>>|The editor (and arguments) to use for the `open-editor` command.
 |<<general-editor-encoding,editor-encoding>>|Encoding to use for editor.
-|<<general-private-browsing,private-browsing>>|Do not record visited pages in the history or store web page icons.
+|<<general-private-browsing,private-browsing>>|Open new windows in private browsing mode which does not record visited pages.
 |<<general-developer-extras,developer-extras>>|Enable extra tools for Web developers.
 |<<general-print-element-backgrounds,print-element-backgrounds>>|Whether the background color and images are also drawn when the page is printed.
 |<<general-xss-auditing,xss-auditing>>|Whether load requests should be monitored for cross-site scripting attempts.
@@ -399,7 +399,7 @@ Default: +pass:[utf-8]+
 
 [[general-private-browsing]]
 === private-browsing
-Do not record visited pages in the history or store web page icons.
+Open new windows in private browsing mode which does not record visited pages.
 
 Valid values:
 
diff --git a/qutebrowser/config/configdata.py b/qutebrowser/config/configdata.py
index b9eb2be2d..44453a4ef 100644
--- a/qutebrowser/config/configdata.py
+++ b/qutebrowser/config/configdata.py
@@ -186,8 +186,8 @@ def data(readonly=False):
 
             ('private-browsing',
              SettingValue(typ.Bool(), 'false'),
-             "Do not record visited pages in the history or store web page "
-             "icons."),
+             "Open new windows in private browsing mode which does not record "
+             "visited pages."),
 
             ('developer-extras',
              SettingValue(typ.Bool(), 'false',