ChatGPT gets an awesome new feature—long-awaited by many—that ensures no one else can read your personal conversations..

Artificial intelligence company OpenAI has announced a new feature that ChatGPT users have been anticipating for some time. This feature offers users enhanced privacy and security. The company stated that users can now lock their ChatGPT conversations to keep them completely secure. This feature was designed with everyday scenarios in mind—for instance, when a user might want to keep certain chats private from family members or friends.

This is particularly useful when you are engaged in a personal conversation or planning a surprise for someone, and you happen to share your phone or laptop with friends or family; the locked chats will remain hidden from them. Users can easily lock or unlock these conversations using a 4-digit PIN, or through their device’s Face ID or Touch ID.

ChatGPT’s New Lock Feature
Once you lock a conversation in ChatGPT, it becomes fully secure, and you will notice some changes on your screen. Upon locking, the conversation will disappear from the main chat history sidebar. Furthermore, it will no longer appear in your 'Pinned Chats' or within the main chat search results. Instead, the conversation is moved to a separate, secure folder labeled 'Locked Chats.'

It is worth noting that this new lock feature is distinct from the existing 'Temporary Chat' option. Temporary chats are never saved and disappear permanently once the session ends. In contrast, 'Locked Chats' keep your data securely stored; you can unlock the folder whenever you wish to resume previous conversations.

A Separate 'Memory' for Private Chats
A notable aspect of this update is how it intelligently manages ChatGPT’s 'Memory' feature. If you have the Memory feature enabled on your account, your locked chats will be assigned a separate, dedicated memory space—one that is shared exclusively among your hidden conversations. Any new information shared within a locked chat will only update this private memory, ensuring that sensitive details cannot accidentally leak into your regular chat conversations.

Security and Data-Related Policies
While this lock feature adds a robust layer of privacy on-screen, it does not change how your data is stored in the background. The company has clarified that locking a chat does not equate to end-to-end encryption or the creation of a separate, encrypted vault. Furthermore, it does not affect the company’s data retention timelines or the settings used for model training.

A critical requirement for this feature is the 4-digit PIN. If you forget your PIN and choose to reset it, OpenAI will—for security reasons—permanently delete all your locked chats, hidden files, and private memory. Even the company’s customer support team will be unable to recover this deleted data under any circumstances.

Who can use it?
The new 'Locked Chats' feature is currently being rolled out in phases across web, Mac, and Windows desktop apps, as well as on iOS and Android mobile apps. If you do not see the feature yet, it may take some time to reach you. This functionality will be available to users on the company's ChatGPT Free, Go, Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Edu plans. However, the company has clarified that this new feature will not be available to users on the 'ChatGPT for Healthcare' plan.

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