In this post, we will show you how to clear, delete, increase, or disable ChatGPT Memory in Windows 11/10. ChatGPT is a leading AI chatbot that generates human-like responses. When a user chats with ChatGPT, it temporarily retains information from user inputs during the session to provide contextually relevant responses. If the ‘Memory‘ feature is enabled, it can also retain information across various chat sessions.
Memory works like custom instructions in ChatGPT. When you share information that might be useful for future conversations, ChatGPT adds a summary of that to its memory. These summaries form part of the conversation record while generating a response.
ChatGPT can update pre-existing memories or consolidate them whenever needed. Though it has been trained not to remember sensitive information (unless you explicitly ask it to), you can clear, delete, or disable its memory at any time if you’re concerned about privacy or wish to manage what it remembers.
How to clear, delete, increase, disable ChatGPT Memory
Let us see how to clear, delete, increase, or disable ChatGPT Memory on a Windows 11/10 PC.
Clear/Delete ChatGPT Memory
Click your profile icon in the top-right corner and select Settings from the menu. Click Personalization in the left pane of the Settings pop-up.
To delete individual memories, click the Manage button.
You’ll see a list of memories ChatGPT manages for you. Click the trash icon next to the specific memory you want to delete. A confirmation popup will appear. Click Forget to clear the memory.
To clear all memories, click the Clear memories button at the bottom and confirm your selection.
When ‘Memory’ is on, you can also directly ask ChatGPT to forget specific details (e.g., ‘Forget that I work for TheWindowsClub.com.‘) or clear all memory (e.g., ‘Forget everything you’ve remembered‘.)
If you delete your OpenAI account, any stored information, including memories retained by ChatGPT, is permanently erased as part of the account deletion process.
Increase ChatGPT Memory
ChatGPT’s memory limit per session is fixed and cannot be increased by users. Memory across sessions is also a feature, not an upgrade, so it is not tied to payment yet. However, if your ChatGPT memory is full or near capacity, you may take specific measures to regain and optimize the memory space:
- Review and delete unnecessary/outdated information from memory via Settings.
- Ask ChatGPT to forget specific details, e.g., ‘Forget my last conversation about air purifiers‘.
- Ask ChatGPT to summarize the key points of the current chat (e.g., ‘Summarize this conversation and include only the most important details.‘), review the summary (e.g., ‘Remove point X and focus on points Y and Z.’ or ‘This is accurate.‘), then explicitly tell ChatGPT to remember it (e.g., ‘Store this summary in memory and forget the rest of the conversation.‘)
- Disable memory for conversations you don’t think you’ll need in the future.
- Use Temporary Chat for quick questions, tasks you only need to discuss once, or topics you won’t revisit.
Disable ChatGPT Memory
To disable memory in ChatGPT, click your profile picture in the top-right corner of the ChatGPT interface and select Settings.
Select Personalization in the left pane of the Settings dialogue and toggle the ‘Memory‘ setting off.
If prompted, confirm that you want to disable memory. Moving forward, this will stop ChatGPT from saving information across sessions.
Tip: Temporary Chat lets you converse with No memory
Temporary Chat is a feature that allows you to converse with a blank slate, where no memories are used or created by the chatbot for the active session. In the temporary chat, the context is retained only for the active session and is lost when you close the browser, refresh the page, or start a new chat. The information shared in the chat is not saved across sessions, even if memory is enabled for your account.
Temporary chats are best when you don’t want ChatGPT to retain specific information or you’re concerned about privacy. To start a temporary chat, click the ChatGPT version dropdown at the top of the interface and turn on the toggle for Temporary chat.
Note: Temporary Chats are not saved to your history or remembered by ChatGPT, but OpenAI may retain a copy of them for up to 30 days for safety and monitoring purposes.
I hope you find this useful.
Read: How to use ChatGPT Desktop App for Windows.
What happens if I clear ChatGPT memory?
If you clear ChatGPT memory, any previously retained information, such as preferences, ongoing projects, or details you explicitly asked ChatGPT to remember, will be erased. Once memory is cleared, it cannot be recovered, and you’ll have to reintroduce the necessary details if you want it to refer to something you’ve discussed earlier.
Does ChatGPT remember deleted conversations?
Memories are stored separately from the chat history. So, even if a conversation is over or deleted, any information saved in memory can still be used in future interactions. Also, if you ask ChatGPT to forget a memory, it will be erased, but OpenAI may keep a log of the forgotten memory for up to 30 days for safety, monitoring, and debugging purposes.
Read Next: Things you can do with ChatGPT.
