ChatGPT Locked Chats: A New Layer of Privacy
ChatGPT locked chats are here, giving users a simple way to keep sensitive conversations away from prying eyes. With the feature enabled, you decide whether a past exchange appears in your regular chat history, pinned chats, and conversation search. To open a locked chat, you enter a 4-digit PIN.
On iPhone and Android, you can also use authentication systems like Face ID to access those conversations. Either way, your private conversations are grouped under a new project titled “Locked chats.”
OpenAI frames the feature mainly as a way to prevent people in public, or someone you hand your phone to, from seeing your conversations with ChatGPT. What locked chats are not is a form of end-to-end encryption, and they are not a way to skirt OpenAI’s legal obligations if you get in trouble with your workplace or the law.
What the Feature Actually Protects
The core idea is visibility control. A locked chat disappears from the places where someone casually browsing your phone would normally find it: your chat history, your pinned chats, and conversation search. It only reappears once you authenticate with your PIN or biometric unlock.
That makes the feature useful in everyday situations. If you share a phone with a partner, hand your device to a friend to look at a photo, or use ChatGPT on a crowded train, locked chats keep your private exchanges out of view. The protection is practical rather than cryptographic.
What Locked Chats Do Not Change
OpenAI is explicit about the limits in a newly published support page. Locked chats won’t automatically change your model training settings, and they won’t change how long OpenAI retains your private conversations. Your existing preferences stay exactly as they were.
The company also stresses that the feature does not amount to end-to-end encryption. Locked chats hide conversations on your device; they do not change what happens to that data on OpenAI’s side.
The PIN Reset Warning You Need to Know
There is one catch that deserves attention before you start locking conversations. If you reset your account PIN for any reason, doing so will delete all of your locked chats, alongside any files you’ve uploaded to their project space.
OpenAI warns that this cannot be undone, and that OpenAI Support cannot recover the deleted content. In other words, a forgotten PIN doesn’t just lock you out temporarily — it wipes the conversations and files permanently. Treat your PIN like you would any other account credential and store it somewhere safe.
Availability and Rollout
OpenAI says it’s rolling out locked chats to users gradually. If you don’t see the option right away, it may take a few days before it arrives in your account.
Availability will extend to free accounts, as well as to those with Go, Plus, and Pro subscriptions. On Android and iOS, you can use voice mode in combination with locked chats. One exception: you can’t lock your Codex conversations behind the feature.
How to Think About Locked Chats
The feature sits somewhere between a convenience and a privacy tool. It solves a real, common problem — someone glancing at your screen or scrolling through your history — without claiming to protect you from OpenAI itself or from legal requests.
If your concern is a nosy seatmate, a shared family phone, or a friend borrowing your device, locked chats do the job. If your concern is government surveillance, workplace investigations, or data retention, the feature changes nothing. Understanding that distinction is the key to using it well.
Quick Recap
What it is: A PIN- or biometric-protected space for sensitive ChatGPT conversations, grouped under a “Locked chats” project.
What it isn’t: End-to-end encryption, or a change to OpenAI’s data retention and model training settings.
The risk: Resetting your PIN permanently deletes all locked chats and their uploaded files.
Availability: Rolling out gradually to free, Go, Plus, and Pro accounts on iPhone and Android.
One exception: Codex conversations cannot be locked.
If the option hasn’t appeared in your account yet, give it a few days before assuming it’s unavailable to you. Once it arrives, set a PIN you’ll remember — and keep a secure record of it, because there is no recovery path once it’s gone.
