Free ChatGPT Users Just Got Access to One of the Paid App’s Most Useful Features
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Over time, the new features OpenAI adds to ChatGPT for paying users gradually trickle down to the free tier for everyone else — and that’s now the case with ChatGPT Projects , one of the most useful new additions this year.
Projects are isolated spaces where you can group multiple chats. You can use them however you want — for research projects, vacation planning, creative brainstorming, and everything in between. They’re a bit like file folders (if you’ve heard of that ancient technology).
In addition to making Projects available to everyone, OpenAI has also added a few more customization options and increased the number of files that can be uploaded in a single project: five for free users, 25 for Plus users, and 40 for users on higher plans. The feature is already available on the web and Android , and will be coming to iOS in the next few days.
Get started with projects
You can find your projects in the left navigation bar on both the web browser and mobile. Click on any project to open it, or select New Project to create a new one. You’ll need to give it a name (or choose one from the suggested ones), and you can optionally assign an emoji and color (this will help you select the right projects from the list as you add new ones).
Another customization option is how you choose to handle the memory feature. ChatGPT can remember everything you say to prevent repetition unless you disable it . With projects, you can store your chat history within each project or share it with other chats (and vice versa). This setting can’t be changed later, so choose carefully.
On mobile, you’ll be prompted to make this choice when creating a project, and on the web, you can do so by tapping the gear icon in the new project dialog. There’s no way to turn on ChatGPT Memory for all projects and turn it off for individual projects, or turn it on for just one or a few projects without using it for the rest of your account (see the main ChatGPT settings screen for details).
After all this, your new project is created. Everything works more or less as usual, with all the standard features (like creating images and searching the web). The only difference is that there is a central file repository available to all participants in your project. This can be used in addition to uploading files for specific discussions – click the ” Add files ” button in your project.
Use projects inside ChatGPT
ChatGPT Projects are easy to learn, and you can access them at any time from the left navigation bar. They’ve proven very useful when I’m researching specific topics online (with careful double-checking along the way), and I don’t want those discussions to get mixed up with everything else I use ChatGPT for.
One of the cool features you get is the ability to give ChatGPT specific instructions for each project, which can be different from the general instructions . For example, you can tell ChatGPT to use a specific tone or a specific response length for each project, or even specify what language to use. In a project, click the three dots, then select Add Instructions or Edit Instructions .
Using the same three-dot menu within each project, you can change the project name, emoji, and color, as well as delete the project (which will delete all chats and files within it). Each individual chat within a project has its own three-dot menu, which provides access to standard functions: share, rename, archive, and delete.
Once you start using the Projects feature, the three-dot menu attached to each conversation will have additional options: you can move chats between projects, remove them from projects and put them in the main list of conversations, or move them from the main list to a specific project.
Disclosure: Lifehacker’s parent company, Ziff Davis, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in April, alleging that it infringed Ziff Davis’ copyrights in the training and operation of its AI systems.