Lock Sensitive ChatGPT Chats With a PIN or Face ID
Sharing your screen or handing your phone to someone else doesn’t mean your private AI conversations have to be on display anymore. OpenAI just rolled out a feature that lets you tuck individual chats away behind a four-digit PIN, Face ID, Touch ID, or device authentication.
The update pulls locked chats straight out of your regular history and search results, hiding them neatly out of sight. You can still access them whenever you need, provided you have the right credentials.
Locking an existing conversation takes just a few taps. Open the chat’s three-dot menu, pick the lock option, and confirm your four-digit account PIN. Once secured, the conversation moves over to a dedicated section under Projects > Locked chats. If you change your mind later, you can reverse the process by selecting unlock from the same menu.
But there is a major catch you shouldn’t ignore. If you lose your PIN and end up resetting it, OpenAI permanently deletes every single one of your locked chats along with any files or info stored inside them. Support can’t recover that data for you, so make sure you keep your code safe.
It is also worth noting what the feature doesn’t do. Locking a chat doesn’t mean it’s end-to-end encrypted, and it won’t change OpenAI’s data-retention rules or whether your chats are used to train AI models. Workplace compliance rules still apply for Business, Enterprise, and Edu users too.
One final detail: if you already created a shared link for a conversation before locking it, that link remains active. You’ll need to delete the shared link separately to cut off outside access.
OpenAI is pushing the feature out gradually across Free, Go, Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Edu accounts. It works across the web, iOS, Android, and the newer desktop apps for Windows and macOS. If the option isn’t showing up on your device yet, you’re simply waiting on the global rollout to reach your account.
