How to Delete All ChatGPT Chats at Once (or Just Some)

To delete all your ChatGPT chats at once, open Settings, go to Data controls, select Delete all next to Delete all chats, and confirm. It clears every conversation in the workspace you're in, including the ones inside projects, and it can't be undone. If you have more than one workspace, say a personal one and a work one, switch to each and repeat it. ChatGPT has no way to select several chats and delete just those, so if you want to keep some, you either delete the rest one at a time or use a tool that filters them for you. I'll cover both below.

Delete All ChatGPT Chats on the Web

This is the fastest route, and it's the same in the desktop app.

1. 1

   Open Data controls

   Go to chatgpt.com and sign in. Click your profile picture, then Settings, then Data controls.

2. 2

   Delete all chats

   Next to Delete all chats, click Delete all, then confirm.

   

To remove a single chat instead, hover it in the sidebar, click the three dots, choose Delete and confirm.

Delete Only Some ChatGPT Chats in Bulk

This is where ChatGPT runs out. There's no checkbox, no multi-select and no "delete everything from last spring." People have been asking OpenAI for it on the developer forum all year, and new requests keep coming. ChatGPT's search can find chats by title or message, but it can't delete what it finds.

So if you've got 800 chats and want to keep the 40 that matter, your choices are clicking through 760 deletions or using something built for it. Most of the tools that show up in search are browser extensions that need to read every page you visit. I'd rather not hand that kind of access to a stranger's extension, which is part of why we built this into Redact's ChatGPT cleanup. It runs on your own device, signs in to your ChatGPT account there, and deletes only what matches the filters you set:

• Date range, so you can clear everything from before a job change or a specific month. A chat matches when any one of its messages falls in the range, and the whole chat is deleted, so a chat you started before the cutoff and kept using afterwards goes too.
• Search query, matched against both titles and messages.
• Title contains and chat content contains, with a list of words or phrases for each.
• Content type, to target chats with uploaded files, images or tool outputs.
• Pinned chats, to delete only those or always keep them.

The keyword, content type and pinned filters also work the other way round, as lists of what to keep. Add "tax" or "resume" as words to preserve, and any chat that mentions them stays put, however old it is. The date range and search query only pick what to delete.

Before anything is deleted, run it in Preview mode. It lists every chat your filters match without touching them, so you can adjust the filters until the list is right, then switch to Deletion and start. Your last 30 days of chats are free to clear. Going further back, or scheduling a cleanup to run on its own, needs Premium.

Redact has similar filters for Claude, Grok and Perplexity, with date, search and keywords on all three, if your history is spread across more than one assistant.

Delete ChatGPT Chats on iPhone and Android

The apps work the same way on both phones. To clear everything, open the sidebar, tap your profile picture to open Settings, then tap Data controls and Delete all chats, and confirm. To remove one chat, press and hold it in the sidebar, tap Delete and confirm.

Deleting on your phone deletes everywhere. Chats are tied to your account, not the device, so they're gone from the web and the desktop app too.

Archive or Delete?

Archiving is the undo-friendly option. It hides a chat from the sidebar, but the chat still exists and still turns up in search.

Archiving doesn't change how long OpenAI keeps a chat, so it isn't a privacy step. It's a tidy-up.

What Deleting a Chat Doesn't Remove

A deleted chat takes its shared link with it, but a few things live apart from your chat history and need their own cleanup.

• Saved memories. OpenAI says outright that deleting a chat "does not automatically delete a separate saved memory." Go to Settings, Personalization, Memory, then Manage, and delete what you don't want kept. Turning off Reference chat history schedules what ChatGPT picked up from past chats for deletion within 30 days, and leaves the chats themselves alone.
• Files in your Library. A file saved to the Library stays after its chat is gone. Delete it from Library in the sidebar, and empty Recently deleted if you see it.
• Projects. Deleting a chat inside a project doesn't touch the project. Deleting the project removes its chats, instructions and the files stored only in it, in one go.
• Copies other people saved. If someone opened your shared link and continued the chat in their own account, your deletion won't reach their copy. You can review every link in Settings, Data controls, Shared links, Manage.

For how memory and training fit into the rest of OpenAI's rules, see our plain-English read of ChatGPT's privacy policy.

How Long OpenAI Keeps Deleted Chats

Deleted chats leave your account straight away and are scheduled for permanent deletion within 30 days. The exceptions are chats that were already de-identified and separated from your account, and cases where OpenAI has to keep data longer for security or legal reasons.

That second exception was real for a while. During the New York Times lawsuit, a court order made OpenAI hold on to deleted chats. OpenAI says those obligations ended on September 26, 2025, and deleted chats and Temporary Chats are back on the 30-day schedule. It still keeps a limited set of data from April to September 2025 under legal lock, so if you deleted something in that window, I wouldn't assume it's fully gone yet.

Export First, Then Stop the Pile-Up

If there's anything you might want later, export it before you delete. In Settings, Data controls, select Export next to Export data and confirm. The download link arrives by email and expires 24 hours after you get it, so grab it the same day. Business and Enterprise workspaces don't have this option.

Then cut down what builds up next time.

• Use a Temporary chat for anything you don't want saved. It never appears in your history, isn't used for training and doesn't create memories, though OpenAI can keep a copy for up to 30 days for safety.
• Turn off Improve the model for everyone in Data controls so new chats aren't used for training. It doesn't delete anything, and a thumbs up or down can still send that conversation for training.
• Schedule a recurring cleanup in Redact so older chats clear themselves.