ChatGPT Now Lets You Lock Individual Chats Behind a PIN or Face ID
Locked Chats hides sensitive conversations in a separate section with its own memory. It is a privacy screen for your device, not encryption.
OpenAI has added Locked Chats to ChatGPT, a way to keep selected conversations out of sight if someone else is looking at your screen or using your device. According to TechCrunch on October 20, locked chats move into their own “Locked Chats” section, separate from normal history, pinned chats and search results. To open them you need a four-digit PIN or Face ID or Touch ID on supported devices.
The feature is rolling out to Free, Go, Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu plans, though not ChatGPT for Healthcare. It began on the announcement date, so you may not see it yet. The memory behaviour is the interesting detail: with Memory switched on, the Locked Chats section gets its own memory, shared only among locked chats. New messages in a locked chat can update that memory but not your regular one, so a private topic should not leak into everyday answers. However, anything ChatGPT already remembered before you locked a chat is not erased.
The limits matter just as much. Locking is not end-to-end encryption and does not create a separate encrypted vault. It does not change how long chats are retained or your “Improve the model for everyone” setting. It cannot be used for temporary, archived, group, shared-link, scheduled-task or meeting-recording chats. And resetting the PIN permanently deletes all locked chats, files and other protected content, so write the PIN down somewhere safe.
What’s behind it: two different kinds of privacy are easy to mix up. One is privacy from the people around you, like a partner glancing at your laptop or a colleague borrowing your phone. The other is privacy from the company running the service. Locked Chats helps with the first and does not change the second. Think of it as a drawer with a lock inside a house, not a safe in a bank. It is also unlike Temporary Chats, which disappear from your history; locked chats stay, and you can return to them whenever you like.
What this means for you: if you share a device, or you use ChatGPT for things like health questions, job searches or gift ideas, this is a handy addition. Switch it on for those conversations and keep sensitive details out of regular chats. If your goal is to stop the company itself from seeing or using your data, look at your data and training settings instead, because this feature does not touch them.
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Source: https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/20/chatgpt-now-lets-you-lock-your-chats/
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