OpenAI began rolling out new controls that allow ChatGPT users to turn off their chat history. The new controls begin rolling out to users on Apr. 25, 2023 and can be found in ChatGPT’s settings.
“We’ve introduced the ability to turn off chat history in ChatGPT. Conversations that are started when chat history is disabled won’t be used to train and improve our models, and won’t appear in the history sidebar,” OpenAI announced.
The downside of turning off the chat history is that users will not be able to see previous chats in the sidebar, making it impossible to revisit past conversations.
Even when chat history is disabled, ChatGPT will still retain new conversations for 30 days and will be used for review only in the case of abuse monitoring. After 30 days, the conversations will be permanently deleted.
OpenAI also announced a new option that will make it easier for users to export their conversations and learn which information is stored in ChatGPT. Users who export their conversations will receive the data in a file via email, according to the company.
