You Can Now Lock Your Private Conversations in ChatGPT With a PIN.
If you have private conversations in ChatGPT that you don’t want others to see, you can now add an extra layer of security to those specific chats. The new “Locked Chats” feature lets you hide sensitive messages behind a four-digit account PIN (or biometric authentication on a mobile device), preventing others with access to your device or screen from reading them.
Blocked chats are saved in your chat history—unlike temporary chats, which are private conversations and aren’t saved by default—so you can return to them or continue the conversation at any time. However, once blocked, they are hidden from your chat history, pinned chats, and regular conversation searches. To access them, go to Projects > Blocked Chats and enter your PIN or device unlock method (such as Face ID or Touch ID).
How to set up chat blocking in ChatGPT
To start a locked chat for the first time, open an existing conversation you want to keep private and open the options menu. Select “Lock Chat” > “Lock Chat” and create or enter your account PIN. This will move the conversation to your locked chats project. You can repeat this with any existing conversation or start a locked chat from scratch in “Projects” > “Locked Chats” by entering your PIN or authentication method and typing a message to start the chat. Once finished, select “Lock Now” to stop accessing locked chats and hide them from the sidebar.
Please note that if you don’t already have an account PIN, you will be prompted to set one the first time you attempt to lock a chat. Select “Create PIN,” enter your four-digit code, and enter it again to confirm. You can also enable biometric authentication in your account PIN settings. If you reset your account PIN, all locked chats will be permanently deleted and cannot be recovered.
Chat blocking is available in the ChatGPT Free, Go, Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Edu plans in both the mobile and desktop apps. This feature is not available for ChatGPT for Healthcare. There are other limitations, too: for example, you can’t block temporary, archived, or group chats, as well as chats containing shared links, scheduled or background tasks, or meeting recordings. OpenAI notes that the chat blocking feature is being rolled out gradually, so it may not be available to all users.
Blocked chats are not encrypted.
While blocked chats add a layer of privacy in terms of how conversations appear on your device, they are not automatically encrypted or protected from being stored or used by OpenAI. As noted on the support page , blocked chats are not end-to-end encrypted or stored in a separate encrypted vault, and blocking a chat does not affect other privacy settings, such as “Improve model for everyone” (which can be disabled in Settings > Data Management ) or deleting information ChatGPT already knows about you.