OpenAI has given ChatGPT users a way to hide individual conversations behind a lock. Announced on Tuesday, October 20, the new Locked Chats feature lets you move any conversation into a protected section that only opens with a four-digit PIN — or Face ID or Touch ID on supported devices.
The idea is deliberately small and practical. According to TechCrunch, the feature is built for the moment you hand your phone to a friend to show them something in one chat, and don’t want them glancing at everything else in your history. It is a lock for the screen in front of you, not a vault for your data.
The Lock for Everyday Screen Sharing
Locking a conversation removes it from your regular chat history, your pinned chats, and search results inside the app. It moves into a dedicated Locked Chats section, reached through Projects, where it stays available to return to at any time. That last part is the key difference from Temporary Chats, which leave no history at all — locked chats are hidden, not gone.
On the web and desktop apps, a PIN opens the section. On phones and tablets, Digital Trends notes that you can also use Face ID, Touch ID, or your device’s own unlock method instead of typing the code each time.
The rollout is gradual, so the option may not appear in your account yet. OpenAI says it covers the Free, Go, Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Edu plans — but not ChatGPT for Healthcare, and not every conversation type. Temporary chats, archived chats, group chats, chats created from a shared link, chats with scheduled tasks, and chats with meeting recordings cannot be locked.
The Fine Print: What the Lock Doesn’t Do
Here is the part worth reading twice. Locking a chat does not add end-to-end encryption, does not create a separate encrypted vault, and does not change how long OpenAI keeps the conversation. It does not change the “Improve the model for everyone” setting, and it does not erase anything ChatGPT already remembered about you before you locked the chat.
It does, however, change what happens next. With Memory enabled, Locked Chats has its own separate memory, shared across conversations in the section. New messages in a locked chat can update that separate memory, but they will not update your regular Memory — so details from a locked conversation won’t surface later in an everyday work chat.
There is also a sharp edge to the PIN itself. OpenAI says resetting a PIN permanently deletes all locked chats, files, and other content protected by the previous PIN — and not even support can recover them. Changing the PIN, by contrast, deletes nothing. It is the kind of detail that matters most exactly when you are most stressed: locked out, in a hurry, and one tap away from wiping the very conversations you were trying to protect.
Why This Matters
The honest way to think about Locked Chats is as a locked drawer inside a house with glass windows. The drawer keeps casual eyes out — a friend, a family member, a stranger glancing at your screen on the subway. It does nothing about the house itself: OpenAI still holds the conversations under its standard policies, and legal or employer requests are unaffected.
That distinction is the real story here. Most coverage of this launch reads as a privacy win, full stop. It is better understood as a usability fix for shared screens, and a risky one if users mistake it for real secrecy. If you would not want a conversation stored on OpenAI’s servers at all, a PIN will not change that — a Temporary Chat, or simply not typing it, remains the safer choice. But if your problem is the person next to you, Locked Chats finally solves it without forcing you to delete anything.
Meanwhile in Apps & Tools: OpenAI’s assistant keeps getting more capable in the background, from agentic voice work and plugins in GPT-6 to the intelligent interface overhaul in GPT-6 — and each new capability makes the question of what stays private inside the app a little more urgent.
