OpenAI has been pushing out new features for ChatGPT at a steady clip, and one of the latest updates to arrive is a small but useful one: the ability to search back through the conversations you’ve had with the AI chatbot.
If you want to get back to a chat you were having about party ideas for kids, or you want to pick up on a debate about the ethics of an AI, or you want to continue using ChatGPT to liven up your emails to your boss—whatever it is you need to get back to, it’s now easier to do with the search tool.
The feature is available now, on the web and on mobile, to ChatGPT Plus users paying $20 a month. OpenAI says the roll out to free users will take a few weeks, so if you’re not a paying subscriber, you might not see it yet.
How to search through your ChatGPT conversations
The new search tool for ChatGPT on the web.
Credit: Lifehacker
Once the search feature goes live in your ChatGPT account, you can access it either on the web or in the mobile apps for Android and iOS—though at this stage it’s not particularly advanced in what it can do. All of your conversations with the bot get synced between the web and mobile, if you’re signed in with the same account.
On the web, click the magnifying glass icon up in the top left corner (if you can’t see it, click the icon that’s two joined rectangles to show the side panel). A new dialog box pops up, and you can type in the words you’re looking for: As you type, matches for both the titles of chats and the text within them start appearing.
You’ll see the dates next to the chats in the results, and to visit a previous chat, you can just click on it. You’re also able to create a New chat from the search dialog box, as long as the search box is clear. For now, there are no advanced options—for combining search terms together, for example, or searching for one word while excluding another.
Over on the mobile app, the search box is up in the top right corner of the interface, but you need to tap the sidebar button (two horizontal lines, top left) in order to see it. The same search functionality applies here, and you’ll see matching results as you type out your search terms—you can also just tap ChatGPT to start a new chat.
Managing your ChatGPT conversation history
You can manage what ChatGPT remembers about you.
Credit: Lifehacker
Being able to search through your ChatGPT conversations might make you more inclined to keep them around for future reference, but you can delete a chat at any point on the web: Click the three dots next to the chat in the left-hand side panel, then choose Delete. To wipe everything, click your account picture (top right), then Settings, General, and Delete All.
There’s also ChatGPT’s memory, which is managed separately to your conversation history: Whether or not you keep or delete your chats, the bot can remember details about you, such as your profession or whereabouts you’re from, so its answers are more personalized. For example, if you ask for film recommendations, the AI would remember what you’ve already seen and liked.
To manage this on the web, click your account picture (top right), then Settings and Personalization. You can enable or disable the memory feature using the toggle switch, and click Manage to see individual memories ChatGPT has retained, and delete them individually if needed. To delete everything ChatGPT has ever remembered about you, click Clear ChatGPT’s memory from the Personalization screen.
Should you want to keep your chats around so you can search them, but not have OpenAI use the conversations to further refine its AI models, this is another separate setting: Click your profile picture (top right) and Settings, then select Data controls and turn off the Improve the model for everyone toggle switch.
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