ChatGPT Locked Chats Explained: Hide a Conversation Behind a PIN, on Every Plan Including Free

ChatGPT now has a lock. On October 20, 2026 OpenAI's ChatGPT release notes introduced locked chats: pick a conversation, lock it, and it drops out of your chat history, out of your pinned chats and out of search, reachable only with a 4-digit PIN or your device's own unlock.

The useful part for most people is who gets it. OpenAI names Free, Go, Plus and Pro in one sentence, so this is not a paid privacy feature. The part worth reading twice is what locking does not do, and OpenAI says it in a single line: your retention and model-improvement settings stay unchanged. A lock hides a chat from the person holding your phone. It does not change what OpenAI keeps.

Key Takeaways

• Locked chats arrived on October 20, 2026. OpenAI's wording: "Locked chats let you keep selected conversations in your account while hiding them from regular chat history, pinned chats, and search."
• A 4-digit account PIN, or your device unlock. OpenAI: "Open them with your 4-digit account PIN or supported device authentication."
• Every consumer plan, free included. OpenAI names "Free, Go, Plus, and Pro users" together, which makes this one of the few ChatGPT privacy features with no paywall.
• Every platform. The web, the iOS and Android apps, and "the new ChatGPT desktop app for macOS and Windows."
• It is a rollout, not a switch. OpenAI says locked chats "are rolling out gradually," so a missing Lock chat option means your account has not been reached yet.
• Two taps to lock. OpenAI: "To lock a chat, open a chat's more options menu and select Lock chat."
• It is not encryption and it is not deletion. OpenAI's only statement on the data side is that "your retention and model-improvement settings stay unchanged."
• One thing we could not read. OpenAI's dedicated locked-chats help article is unreachable from here today, so what happens if you forget the PIN is not answered on this page. See the gap below.

What Locking Actually Hides

Three places, all of them places you look. OpenAI lists them exactly: a locked chat is hidden from your regular chat history, from your pinned chats, and from search. The conversation itself is not deleted and not moved out of your account. It is still yours; it just stops showing up when you or anyone else scrolls your sidebar or types a word into the ChatGPT search box.

That is a narrower promise than "private," and it is the right promise for the problem most people actually have. The realistic threat to a ChatGPT conversation is not a hacker. It is a partner, a parent, a child or a colleague picking up an unlocked phone, or your own screen while you share it in a meeting. A chat that does not appear in the list cannot be read over your shoulder.

The fourth row is a limit on our sourcing rather than a statement by OpenAI. Its release note does not use the word encryption in either direction, so read it as unaddressed rather than denied.

Which Plans and Devices Get Locked Chats

All four consumer plans and all four platforms. This is the whole sentence OpenAI published, and it is unusually complete for a privacy feature: "Locked chats are rolling out gradually to Free, Go, Plus, and Pro users on the web, in the iOS and Android apps, and in the new ChatGPT desktop app for macOS and Windows."

Two honest notes on those tables. The business plans are not named, which is not the same as excluded: OpenAI maintains a separate release-notes document for its business products and this entry is the consumer one. And "rolling out gradually" is OpenAI's phrase, so the answer to "why can't I see it" is almost always timing rather than your plan.

How to Lock a Chat

Two taps, and OpenAI publishes the exact route:

1. Open the conversation you want to hide.
2. Open the chat's more options menu, the three dots.
3. Select Lock chat.

If Lock chat is not in that menu, the feature has not reached your account yet. There is nothing to turn on first and no setting to find; OpenAI describes no prerequisite beyond the rollout. Set your PIN when it asks, and write it down somewhere that is not your phone.

The Gap on This Page, and Why It Is Here

One question this page cannot answer: what happens if you forget the PIN. That is the question anyone about to lock a chat should ask first, and the honest position is that OpenAI has published an answer we could not read today.

OpenAI's release note ends with a link to a dedicated help article on locked chats. That article sits on help.openai.com, which has returned HTTP 403 to every request from here since October 4, 2026, and it has no capture in the Internet Archive or at archive.today as of October 21, 2026. We read the release note itself from an Internet Archive capture taken at 10:53 GMT on October 21, 2026, which is why the quotes above are exact.

So, until that article is readable:

• Treat the PIN as unrecoverable. Not because OpenAI says so, but because we have not read a page that says otherwise. Write it down.
• Do not assume every chat can be locked. OpenAI's release note says "selected conversations" and names no exclusions. Whether temporary chats, archived chats or shared chats can be locked is not stated in the entry.
• Do not assume a lock expires. Whether a locked chat re-locks itself after a timeout is not in the release note either.

We will correct this page the day that article becomes readable. If you want the surrounding controls in the meantime, the ChatGPT Privacy Center and security history are where OpenAI gathers what it does with your data and who has signed into your account.

Locked Chats or Temporary Chat: Which One Do You Want

They answer different questions, and picking the wrong one is easy. Lock a chat you want to keep and not be seen. Start a temporary chat for something you do not want kept at all.

The row that catches people out is the last one. A temporary chat is not gone the moment you close it: OpenAI's temporary chat article says it "may keep a copy of a temporary chat for up to 30 days for safety purposes." Neither feature is a delete button, and neither is a secret. They are both about what shows up on your own screen.

Should You Use It?

Lock it if you share a device, a screen or a household. This is the feature for a chat about a medical worry, a job application, a gift, a legal question or a relationship, on a phone your family picks up. It costs nothing on any plan and it takes two taps.

Lock it if you screen-share for work. Your ChatGPT sidebar is visible in every demo and every call. Locking the three chats you would rather not explain is cheaper than remembering to scroll past them.

Do not lock it expecting privacy from OpenAI. The release note is explicit that retention and model-improvement settings do not change. If that is what you are after, the control you want is in your data settings, not a PIN. Our temporary chat page covers what actually keeps a conversation out of training.

Do not lock anything until you have written the PIN down. Four digits are easy to set and easy to lose, and OpenAI's own page on the consequences is the one page we could not read. That asymmetry is reason enough to be careful on day one.

If you are weighing ChatGPT against the alternatives on privacy grounds, the best free AI chatbot in 2026 covers what each free plan does with your conversations, and which AI chatbot should you pay for covers the paid tiers.

Sources

• OpenAI Help Center, ChatGPT release notes, entry "Introducing locked chats" dated October 20, 2026. Read from an Internet Archive capture of October 21, 2026, 10:53 GMT, because the live host returns HTTP 403 from here.
• OpenAI Help Center, Temporary chat in ChatGPT, for the 30-day retention comparison.
• OpenAI's dedicated locked-chats help article, linked from the release note as help.openai.com/articles/20001411: not readable on October 21, 2026 on the live host, the Internet Archive or archive.today.