For Those Who Want Their Past Kept Private: How to Use Temporary Chat in ChatGPT

Metaverse Planet July 11, 2025Last Updated: July 11, 2025

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We’ve answered your question about how to use Temporary Chat in ChatGPT, the most widely used AI tool, to ensure your conversations remain private.

There are undoubtedly times when you don’t want your conversations with today’s most popular AI bot, ChatGPT, to be saved. Perhaps you’re looking for information on a sensitive topic, or maybe you just want to have more control over your digital footprint.

Whatever your reason, there’s a very simple way to keep your conversations private in ChatGPT: Temporary Chat. This feature works much like “incognito mode” in internet browsers, preventing your conversations from being saved in your chat history and from being used to train the AI.

How to Enable Temporary Chat in ChatGPT

Starting a temporary chat in ChatGPT is much simpler than you might think. Follow the steps below to switch to temporary chat in seconds:

Step #1: Go to chat.openai.com as usual and log in to your account.
Step #2: In the upper right part of the interface, you’ll see a button just to the left of your account avatar.
Step #3: Clicking this button will instantly switch you to Temporary Chat mode.
Step #4: A pop-up window will appear on the screen, informing you that you are in temporary chat. All conversations you have in this window will now remain private.

When you activate Temporary Chat mode, a warning appears at the top of the chat window stating: “This chat will not appear in history, will not use or update ChatGPT’s memory, and will not be used to train our models. For security purposes, we may retain a copy of this chat for up to 30 days.” If you see this warning, you’re in the right place. When your conversation is finished, you can return to normal mode by starting a new chat or refreshing the page.

Are ChatGPT Temporary Chats Completely Anonymous?

For the most part, yes. Your temporary chats are not saved in your chat history and are not used to train OpenAI’s AI models. However, OpenAI may retain a copy of these conversations for up to 30 days to prevent misuse and keep the system secure. After this period, the data is permanently deleted.