How to Delete ChatGPT Memory (and Claude Memory)
Step-by-step ways to delete, clear or pause what ChatGPT and Claude remember, and what deleted actually means.
Clearing what an AI remembers takes more than one click, because ChatGPT and Claude each store memory separately from your chats. To delete ChatGPT memory, go to Settings > Personalization > Memory; for Claude, go to Settings > Your Claude and select Manage next to "Your memory".
Below: exact steps for each app, and what "deleted" means for how long the data sticks around. Paths checked October 2026.
What does ChatGPT remember about you?
ChatGPT remembers through two settings: saved memories, specific facts it stores, and reference chat history, which lets it draw on your past chats. Since June 4, 2026, upgraded memory also updates itself automatically and shows a memory summary you can correct (ChatGPT release notes, 2026).
To see what it holds, open Settings > Personalization > Memory, or ask "What do you remember about me?" OpenAI warns that the summary is high-level and "does not necessarily include every detail" (OpenAI Help Center, 2026). The Sources icon under a reply shows which memories and past chats shaped it. How each setting saves context in the first place is covered in how to save context in ChatGPT.
How do you delete ChatGPT memory?
Delete outdated memories one at a time from the memory summary or your saved memories, or clear everything with "Delete and turn off memory". Then deal with chat history, which can bring the same details back as new memories.
Delete a single memory
- Open Settings > Personalization > Memory.
- In the memory summary, type a correction or highlight the wrong text to fix it. To remove it, delete the item, or select Don't mention this again where it's offered.
- To manage memory entry by entry, open the saved-memories view (select Manage or Saved memories) and delete individual memories.
You can also ask ChatGPT directly: "Forget that I work at Acme." OpenAI notes that this doesn't delete the underlying chat, file or connected app the detail came from (OpenAI Help Center, 2026).
Clear all saved memories
- Open Settings > Personalization > Memory.
- Open the more options menu (•••) on the memory summary.
- Select Delete and turn off memory.
That option, added on June 12, 2026, deletes the memories on your summary page and turns memory off, but not your past chats (ChatGPT release notes, 2026). If you're on the older saved-memories experience, the Manage view lets you clear all memories at once (OpenAI).
Turn off reference chat history
In Settings > Personalization > Memory, switch off Reference chat history. Past conversations stop shaping future conversations, and what ChatGPT remembered from them is scheduled for deletion within 30 days. Your saved memories stay, and turning off saved memories also turns off chat history.
Delete your ChatGPT history
- One chat: in the sidebar, open the ••• menu next to the chat and select Delete. On iOS or Android, open the menu, press and hold the chat title, and select Delete.
- All chats: Settings > Data controls > Delete all chats. It can't be undone and includes chats in projects (OpenAI Help Center, 2026).
Archiving isn't deleting. An archived chat leaves the sidebar but stays stored and searchable under Settings > Data controls > Archived chats.
Use a temporary chat instead
For a clean slate without deleting anything, start a new chat and select Temporary. Temporary chats don't create or update memories and stay out of your history; choose Unpersonalized before the first message if it shouldn't use your existing memories or custom instructions either. You can't switch after the chat starts.
What does "deleted" mean at OpenAI?
A deleted chat leaves your account view immediately and is scheduled for permanent deletion within 30 days, unless it was already de-identified or OpenAI has to keep it for security or legal reasons. Deleted chats can't be restored, even by support (OpenAI Help Center, 2026).
Four things to know before you call it done:
- Memories outlive chats. Saved memories are stored separately, so deleting the chat a memory came from doesn't delete the memory (OpenAI Help Center, 2026).
- Logs linger. OpenAI may keep logs of deleted saved memories for up to 30 days for safety and debugging purposes.
- Other places hold copies. Files saved to Library stay until you delete them there, and deleting a chat never touches the original data in a connected app such as Gmail.
- Ads can use memory. On Free and Go, ChatGPT "may save and use memories and reference recent chats when selecting an ad." Turn off "Past chats and memory" under Settings > Ad controls (OpenAI Help Center, 2026).
To remove everything, delete your ChatGPT account: Settings > Account > Delete, type DELETE, then Permanently delete my account. OpenAI deletes the data within 30 days, and you can reuse the email after 30 days (OpenAI Help Center, 2026). The full picture of how ChatGPT memory works is in the ChatGPT memory guide.
How do you delete Claude memory?
Claude keeps memory as a list of topics you can open, edit and delete one by one, with a reset that wipes everything. In the current settings layout it lives under Settings > Your Claude; older layouts show it as Settings > Memory (Anthropic, 2026). How it saves those topics is in the Claude memory guide.
View, edit and delete memory
- Go to Settings > Your Claude and select Manage next to "Your memory".
- Open any item under Topics to read it.
- Use the edit icon to change it, or select Delete to remove it.
Or say it in chat: "Forget that I'm moving to Berlin." The change applies from your next conversation.
Turn memory off
Switch off Memory from chats in Settings > Your Claude (Generate memory from chats under Settings > Memory in the older layout). You get two choices:
- Pause memory: keeps what's stored, but Claude stops using it and stops adding to it.
- Reset memory: permanently deletes all memories, Project memories included. It can't be undone.
To skip memory for one chat only, click + in the message box and turn off Memory before your first message. The chat stays in your history.
Use an incognito chat
Click the ghost icon in the top right of a new chat. Incognito chats don't use existing memory, aren't saved to memory or chat history, and aren't used for training, though Anthropic keeps them for 30 days (Anthropic, 2026). They only work outside Projects.
Clear project memory
Each Claude Project keeps its own memory. Deleting the Project (••• > Delete) deletes that memory, and Reset memory deletes it with everything else. To keep a Project's memory separate without deleting it, turn off Use account memory on the Project's page; more in Claude Projects vs memory.
Back up before you delete
Ask Claude to "Write out your memories of me verbatim, exactly as they appear in your memory" and save the answer to a file (Anthropic, 2026). Settings > Privacy > Export data sends a download link by email, and memory data is included in exports. To bring it back later, Anthropic's import page gives you a prompt and pastes the result into memory settings.
Does deleting a Claude chat delete the memory?
No. Anthropic says that when a conversation is deleted, "memory entries generated from it aren't removed", so you delete those topics separately. To delete a chat, hover over it in the sidebar, click ⋮ and select Delete; for several, open Chats and tasks and use Select. The chat leaves your history immediately and is deleted from back-end systems within 30 days (Anthropic, 2026).
Two exceptions apply. If you allowed your chats to be used to improve Claude, de-identified copies can stay in training pipelines for up to 5 years, and chats flagged for Usage Policy violations are kept for up to 2 years (Anthropic Privacy Center, 2026).
ChatGPT vs Claude: quick reference
| Task | ChatGPT | Claude |
|---|---|---|
| See memory | Settings > Personalization > Memory | Settings > Your Claude > Manage |
| Delete one memory | Delete it in the summary or saved memories | Open the topic > Delete |
| Delete all memory | ••• > Delete and turn off memory | Turn off memory > Reset memory |
| Stop using past chats | Turn off Reference chat history | Turn off Search and reference chats |
| One chat, no memory | Temporary chat (Unpersonalized) | + > Memory off, or incognito |
| Delete all chats | Settings > Data controls > Delete all chats | Chats and tasks > Select all > Delete |
Why does this take two cleanups?
Because each app keeps its own copy of you. Delete a stale fact from ChatGPT and Claude still has it; correct it in Claude and Cursor never hears about it.
A context layer turns that into one job. Unabyss builds your context from Gmail, Calendar, Notion and Slack, serves it to every AI tool over MCP, and lets you delete individual imported data or wipe everything it holds at any time (Unabyss security). Fix or remove something once, and every connected tool reads the new version. For the other ways to keep tools in step, see how to share memory across AI tools.
