OpenAI has started rolling out ChatGPT locked chats, a way to put individual conversations behind a four-digit PIN or your phone's Face ID, Touch ID or fingerprint unlock. The company announced the feature on Tuesday, 20 October, and says it is reaching Free, Go, Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu accounts in stages, so the "Lock chat" option may not show up for everyone yet.
The idea is simple. If you hand your phone to a friend, share a laptop with family, or present your screen at work, the conversations you lock stay out of sight. OpenAI's own examples, reported by TechCrunch's Aisha Malik, are personal conversations and planning a surprise.
There is a catch that matters more than the feature itself: a locked chat is hidden, not encrypted. Here is what the lock does, what it does not do, and how to set it up.
How ChatGPT locked chats work
When you lock a conversation, it leaves your normal chat history, your pinned chats and the search bar. It moves to a separate area that OpenAI's help centre calls Projects > Locked chats. To open anything inside, you enter your PIN or use your device's biometric unlock.
On the web and in the new ChatGPT desktop apps for macOS and Windows, you use the PIN. On iPhone you can switch on Face ID or Touch ID, and on Android you can choose "Use device unlock". The PIN always remains as a fallback, and the same PIN works on every device signed in to your account.
Access also expires on its own. According to OpenAI's help page:
- Web and desktop: locked chats relock when you leave the tab or window, refresh the page or close the tab.
- iPhone and Android: access ends after one minute away from a locked chat or after one minute with the app in the background.
- Everywhere: a "Lock now" button ends access immediately, and signing out or switching accounts does the same.
Locked chats get their own memory
The detail most users will not expect is memory. If you have ChatGPT Memory switched on, the Locked chats area keeps a separate memory, shared only between locked conversations. New things you say in a locked chat can update that private memory, but they are not added to your regular Memory, even after you unlock the chat. Android Headlines writer Jean Leon singled this out as the most useful part of the update, because it stops something you shared in private from resurfacing in an unrelated work chat weeks later.
The separation only runs one way. Anything ChatGPT had already remembered before you locked a chat stays in your main profile.
What the lock does not protect
OpenAI is unusually direct about the limits. Its help page says locking does not provide "end-to-end encryption or a separate encrypted vault" and does not change how long your data is kept. TechCrunch adds that locking also leaves the "Improve the model for everyone" setting exactly as it was.
In practice that means:
- OpenAI still stores the conversation on its servers under its normal retention rules.
- "Anyone who can open a locked chat can still copy its contents," in OpenAI's words.
- On Enterprise and Edu plans, locked chats are still included in conversation logs available through the OpenAI Compliance Platform. Workspace admins cannot unlock your chats or reset your PIN, but they also cannot turn the feature off.
- If a workspace admin disables Memory, locked chats cannot create or use memories either.
So the lock is a screen-privacy tool. It protects you from the person next to you, not from the service itself. That is the same gap we flagged when Meta's Muse assistant shared a seller's home address: a privacy setting is only as strong as what happens to the data behind it.
Forget your PIN and the chats are gone
This is the part to read twice. If you forget your PIN, the only way back in is a reset, and resetting the PIN "permanently deletes all locked chats", along with files and other content protected by the old PIN. OpenAI says deleted content cannot be recovered and its support team cannot restore it.
Changing the PIN is different. If you still know the current PIN, you can change it in settings and keep your locked chats. You will need to type the current PIN even if you normally use Face ID.
How to lock a chat in ChatGPT
- Open the conversation and tap the ••• menu.
- Select Lock chat, then confirm with Lock chat again.
- The first time, ChatGPT asks you to create and confirm a four-digit PIN.
- To open it later, go to Projects > Locked chats and enter your PIN or use biometrics.
- To unlock, open the chat, tap ••• and choose Unlock chat (just Unlock on iOS).
To change your PIN, go to Settings > Security and login > Account PIN.
Chats you cannot lock
Some conversations are excluded: temporary chats, archived chats, group chats, chats opened from a shared link, chats with scheduled tasks (including paused ones), meeting recordings, background tasks and project-source chats. Codex and local Work conversations are also left out, and the feature is not offered on ChatGPT for Healthcare. While a chat is locked you cannot archive, pin, move or share it, and voice is not available in locked chats in the desktop app.
Should you use it?
If you share a device, present your screen, or simply want sensitive conversations out of your main history, the lock is a sensible extra layer, and the separate memory is a real improvement. Just treat it as a curtain rather than a safe. Do not paste anything into ChatGPT that you would not want stored by OpenAI, and write your PIN down somewhere secure, because losing it means losing every locked conversation.
For readers in Africa who often share one phone or laptop across a household, the biometric unlock on Android is likely to be the most practical option, since it avoids typing a PIN in front of others.
Sources: OpenAI Help Center, "Using locked chats in ChatGPT"; TechCrunch (Aisha Malik, 20 October 2026); Android Headlines (Jean Leon, 20 October 2026).
