ChatGPT Locked Chats Is Here: How to Keep Private AI Conversations Private
OpenAI just added Locked Chats to ChatGPT, a privacy feature that lets you hide individual conversations behind a four-digit PIN, Face ID or Touch ID. The company announced it on Tuesday, October 20, 2026, and it is rolling out now.
What are ChatGPT Locked Chats?
Locked Chats is a ChatGPT privacy feature that protects a single conversation from anyone who picks up your phone or looks at your screen. Once you lock a chat, it moves into its own Locked Chats section. It no longer shows up in your regular chat history, your pinned chats or your search results.
How do Locked Chats work?
You secure a chat with a four-digit PIN, or with Face ID or Touch ID on supported devices. Unlike Temporary Chats, which do not appear in your history at all, you can return to a locked chat any time you want to keep going.
When Memory is turned on, Locked Chats also gets its own separate memory. New messages in a locked chat do not update your regular Memory, so a private idea does not leak into everyday conversations.
What Locked Chats does not do
OpenAI is clear about the limits. Locking a chat does not create end-to-end encryption or a separate encrypted vault. It does not change how long OpenAI keeps the chat, it does not remove anything ChatGPT remembered before you locked it, and it does not change the "Improve the model for everyone" setting.
One warning matters most. If you reset your PIN, all locked chats, files and other content protected by the old PIN are deleted for good. You also cannot lock temporary chats, archived chats, group chats, chats created from a shared link, chats with scheduled tasks or chats with meeting recordings.
Who can use it?
Locked Chats is available on ChatGPT Free, Go, Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu plans. It is not available on ChatGPT for Healthcare. Because the rollout started on Tuesday, you may not see it in your app yet, so check again in a few days.
Why it matters for Miami businesses
Think of a shared tablet at a Brickell front desk, a laptop passed around a Coral Gables clinic, or a phone handed to a client in a Wynwood studio. Owners now use ChatGPT for pricing ideas, hiring questions and draft emails, and those chats can be sitting one tap away from a curious glance.
A lock is a good habit for that kind of casual exposure. Just remember it is a privacy screen and not a security system. Keep sensitive client details, patient information and passwords out of any AI chat unless your business has a clear policy for it.
At Net Nerds, Dean Isenberg and the team help owners set up simple AI privacy habits that fit how they actually work. We teach AI to businesses and professionals at every level. Visit netnerds.com or netnerds.ai, or call 833-NET-NERDS (833-638-6373).
