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Lock your private ChatGPT chats

Anyone who picks up your phone can scroll your ChatGPT history. Locked chats hide the private ones behind a 4-digit PIN or Face ID. Here's how, and the one setting that can wipe them for good.

By Alan Brown · Works with ChatGPT

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🔒 Anyone who picks up your phone can read your ChatGPT chats. Locked chats fix that.

  • 1️⃣ Open the chat you want to hide, tap the chat name at the top (or its ⋯ menu) and choose Lock chat.
  • 🔢 Set a 4-digit PIN. On iPhone and Android you can open it with Face ID, Touch ID or your phone's unlock instead.
  • 🙈 The chat disappears from your recent chats, pinned chats and search. You'll find it under Projects → Locked chats.
  • 📱 Works on Free, Go, Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu, on web, iOS, Android and the desktop apps. OpenAI is rolling it out gradually, so you may not see it yet.
  • ⚠️ If you forget your PIN and reset it, every locked chat is permanently deleted, with the files and information stored only in them. OpenAI Support can't get them back. If you remember it, you can change it safely.

Context & limitations

Locking hides a chat on your account; it isn't end-to-end encryption and doesn't change how OpenAI stores your data or your model-training setting. Links you already shared stay live until you delete them, and anything already saved to memory isn't removed.

Do this yourself

Help me tidy up my ChatGPT privacy. I'll paste the titles of my recent chats below. Ask me one question at a time (up to 3) about who else sees my phone or computer, and which topics I'd be embarrassed or worried for someone else to read. Then give me: 1. A short list of the chats I should lock, with one line on why for each. 2. The exact steps to lock a chat on the device I use (web, iPhone, Android or desktop app), and how to open a locked chat again later. 3. A reminder to store my PIN somewhere safe, explaining in one sentence what happens if I forget it. 4. Anything locking does NOT protect (for example links I've already shared or what's in memory) and what I should do about each. Keep it under 200 words. If you're not sure how locked chats work on my plan or device right now, say so and point me to OpenAI's current help page instead of guessing. My recent chat titles: ___

People ask ChatGPT about health worries, money, work problems and relationships, then hand their phone to a friend or leave a laptop open. Locking the sensitive chats takes ten seconds and keeps them out of your recent list and search.

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