OpenAI introduced locked chats in ChatGPT on Oct. 20, 2026, a feature that keeps selected conversations in an account but hides them from regular chat history, pinned chats and search. The locked conversations open with a 4-digit account PIN or supported device authentication such as Face ID, Touch ID or a phone’s unlock method.
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The feature targets a common situation: a shared tablet, a family laptop or a phone handed across a table, where one person’s private questions would otherwise sit in the sidebar for the next person to see. It is a screen-level privacy control, and the details of what it does not do matter as much as what it does.
What the Oct. 20 release notes announced
The entry in OpenAI’s ChatGPT release notes is titled “Introducing locked chats.” It says the feature lets people keep selected conversations in their account while hiding them from regular history, and that retention and model-improvement settings stay unchanged. Rollout is gradual across the web, the iOS and Android apps, and the new desktop app for macOS and Windows, so some eligible accounts may not see the option yet.
To lock a conversation, a user opens the more-options menu (the three dots) on a chat and selects Lock chat. The release notes list Free, Go, Plus and Pro plans and do not mention Business, Enterprise or Edu. OpenAI’s separate help article is broader and lists those workspace plans as well, while excluding ChatGPT for Healthcare, so the two pages differ and availability may depend on rollout timing.
How the PIN and unlocking work
According to OpenAI’s help article on locked chats, ChatGPT asks for a 4-digit account PIN the first time someone locks a chat or opens the locked area. The PIN belongs to the OpenAI account rather than a workspace. Locked chats are found by going to Projects and then Locked chats, where the PIN, Face ID, Touch ID or device unlock opens them. Access ends after a period away or when the user selects Lock now.
The reset rule is the sharpest edge. Resetting a forgotten PIN permanently deletes all locked chats and content protected only by that PIN. OpenAI says the deletion cannot be undone and that its support team cannot recover the content. Workspace administrators cannot reset the PIN or unlock someone’s chats either, which makes the feature a real barrier against a manager or a family member but also an easy way to lose work.
OpenAI’s release notes frame the feature around keeping conversations in the account rather than deleting them, which is the point of the design. A person who asks a sensitive health, money or gift-planning question can keep the thread for later without leaving it in the sidebar, and the lock re-engages after a period away from the screen, so a phone left on a table does not stay open.
Limits, memory and what stays the same
Locking a chat is not encryption. The help article states plainly that it does not encrypt the conversation, change retention, or change the model-improvement setting. People who want to stop their conversations from training OpenAI’s models still have to turn off Improve the model for everyone under Settings and Data controls, as described in OpenAI’s data controls guide. That guide also notes that temporary chats stay out of history and memory and may be kept up to 30 days for safety purposes, a different tool from locking.
Several behaviors surprise at first. Locking a chat that belongs to a project removes it from that project, so it stops using the project’s instructions, files and memory. Locked chats can draw on regular memories, but memories created inside them do not carry back into regular chats. Files stay usable only within the chat itself. Temporary, archived, group and scheduled-task chats cannot be locked, nor can Codex conversations, and voice works in locked chats on web and mobile but not on the desktop app.
The desktop point ties into a second change. OpenAI describes the new ChatGPT desktop app as combining Chat and Work under ChatGPT alongside Codex on macOS and Windows, which is one of the places locked chats are arriving. For anyone sharing a device, the sensible habit is to lock sensitive chats, use Lock now when stepping away, and remember that anyone with the PIN or an unlocked phone can open them.
Readers who want stronger protection against a company or a court should not treat the lock as a substitute for deleting data, because the conversations remain stored in the account under the same retention rules as before. The feature reduces what a person sitting at the screen can see; it does not change what OpenAI holds. Its own explanation of how data improves model performance remains the reference for that.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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