ChatGPT finally has a way to hide conversations without deleting them. OpenAI began rolling out Locked Chats on Tuesday, October 20, a feature that lets users put a four-digit PIN, or Face ID / Touch ID on supported devices, on individual conversations, keeping them out of regular chat history, pinned chats, and search results.

The scenario OpenAI has in mind is painfully ordinary. You’re handing your phone to a friend to show them something, and the last thing you want is a personal conversation sitting there in the sidebar. With the lock on, that thread simply doesn’t appear until you authenticate. Tap a locked chat and it moves into a dedicated “Locked Chats” section, kept apart from everything else.

This is different from ChatGPT’s existing Temporary Chats, which open a separate session that never lands in history at all. A locked chat is saved normally. You can reopen it any time, pick up where you left off, and its files stay put. It’s privacy through access control, not through deletion.

How ChatGPT locked chats work

Using it is straightforward. Open the three-dot options menu on any eligible conversation and pick Lock chat. Set your four-digit PIN once, and it’s tied to your OpenAI account. After that, the locked conversation vanishes from your regular sidebar, your pinned list, and the search bar. It lives in its own section until you unlock it.

OpenAI is pushing this out across nearly every ChatGPT plan: Free, Go, Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Edu all get it, on web, iOS, Android, macOS, and Windows. Rollout started Tuesday, so the option may not be visible on every account yet. Give it a day or two before hunting through the menu.

Two exceptions are worth knowing up front. Locked Chats isn’t available for ChatGPT for Healthcare at all, and it can’t be applied to Temporary Chats, archived chats, group chats, chats opened from a shared link, chats with scheduled tasks, or chats containing meeting recordings.

What the lock doesn’t do

Here’s where the fine print matters, and OpenAI’s help page doesn’t hide it. Locking a chat:

  • Does not add end-to-end encryption
  • Does not create a separate encrypted vault
  • Does not change how long OpenAI retains the chat
  • Does not remove anything ChatGPT already remembered before the lock
  • Does not change the “Improve the model for everyone” training setting

In other words, this is a curtain, not a safe. Someone with access to your account credentials, or OpenAI’s own systems, can still read what’s inside. TechCrunch put it plainly: while locking a chat can limit who glances at your screen, “it doesn’t address concerns about how sensitive information is stored or handled.”

One detail is smarter than expected, though. If you have ChatGPT’s Memory feature on, locked chats get their own partitioned memory, shared only with other chats inside the locked section. New messages sent after locking can update that separate memory. But they don’t touch your regular Memory. The wall goes one way too: information ChatGPT remembered before you locked the chat stays in regular Memory. So the lock stops future leaks, not past ones.

The catch: forget the PIN, lose everything

This is the part to read twice. OpenAI warns that resetting your PIN permanently deletes everything behind it. The company’s own wording: “Resetting a PIN permanently deletes all associated locked chats and protected content.”

There is no back door and no recovery. OpenAI says it deliberately can’t help you recover them, and in a workspace, an administrator can’t reset someone else’s PIN either. Changing the PIN, as opposed to resetting it, deletes nothing. But if you lose the code and hit reset, the locked section wipes itself clean. Files included.

It’s a design choice that makes sense once you think about it. A PIN you can reset through support is a PIN support can access. OpenAI chose the harsher rule to keep the lock meaningful, even if some users will inevitably learn about it the hard way.

Why this matters

ChatGPT has quietly become the place where people draft breakup texts, rehearse salary negotiations, and talk through health scares. None of that is new. The surprise is that a lock took this long. WhatsApp has had chat locks since 2023. Apple Notes has had locked notes for years. Meanwhile, the biggest AI chatbot on the planet left every conversation sitting in a sidebar anyone could scroll.

The timing probably isn’t accidental. OpenAI is under pressure from all sides on privacy right now. Eight US states sued the company over teen safety in early October, and the White House’s September AI safety accord has the whole industry pledging external safety reviews. A visible privacy feature lands as a low-cost win while those heavier fights play out.

But don’t confuse the win for what it isn’t. Locked Chats answers one question — who can see this conversation on my screen — and deliberately not the harder one: what happens to the conversation once it’s stored. OpenAI keeps the retention terms exactly as they were. If you’re discussing something that shouldn’t exist on a server, the PIN won’t help.

Still, for the mundane version of privacy (the friend borrowing your phone, the spouse glancing at your laptop, the kid who grabs your iPad), this is exactly the right tool. Just don’t forget the digits.

Frequently asked questions

How do I lock a chat in ChatGPT?

Open the conversation’s three-dot options menu and choose Lock chat, then set a four-digit PIN. On supported devices you can also use Face ID, Touch ID, or your device’s own unlock method.

Are ChatGPT locked chats end-to-end encrypted?

No. OpenAI says locking a chat does not add end-to-end encryption, does not create a separate encrypted vault, and does not change data retention or the “Improve the model for everyone” setting.

What happens if I forget my ChatGPT locked chats PIN?

OpenAI says resetting the PIN permanently deletes all locked chats, files, and other content tied to the old PIN. There is no recovery option, and even OpenAI’s support team can’t restore them.

Which chats can’t be locked in ChatGPT?

Temporary chats, archived chats, group chats, chats created from a shared link, chats with scheduled tasks, and chats with meeting recordings can’t be locked. The feature is also unavailable on ChatGPT for Healthcare.

Sources: TechCrunch, iTech Post, AI Weekly, Gadgets 360