PSA: Deleting a ChatGPT conversation doesn’t mean ChatGPT forgets it

Please remember that Delete Chat does NOT mean “forget what was in the chat.” I am tentatively flairing this as "news" because I genuinely don't think many people realise that this is how ChatGPT 'memory' works. I got one if those OpenAI "GPT got even better!" promo emails. One of the things it suggested to try was to "caricature me using everything you know about me." That sounded vaguely amusing. It was NOT. It included specific references to things I'd discussed in old chats and then deleted, because I didn't want them to influence GPT's future behaviour. ChatGPT had retained a detailed summary of every one of those conversations in its Memory context, even though the chats were deleted and there is no reference to those details in the "memory summary" that you can ask for. The fun part: when I asked how to delete it, ChatGPT twice directed me to Memory-management/editing controls that don't exist, before eventually admitting it can't directly delete or even verify deletion of the retained information. If you want control over what ChatGPT knows about you, it seems the only option is to disable memory entirely, which sucks, since I've found Memory makes it more personalised in a useful way. I just hope this helps anyone who has discussed or sought advice on something personal, painful, or professionally sensitive, then deleted the chat - not realising that behind the scenes it still lives on and may resurface unexpectedly in future interactions. submitted by /u/Digital_Armadillo [link] [comments]

Source: r/ChatGPT | 2026-09-21