How to Delete ChatGPT, Claude & Gemini Memory (Sept 2026)
Every major AI assistant now remembers you between conversations, and most of them changed how that memory works this summer. ChatGPT moved to a memory summary in June. Claude reorganized memory into topics you can open and edit, and on August 25 made the same memory work across chat and Cowork. Gemini regrouped its memory settings under Personal Intelligence. If a guide you found describes a menu that isn't there anymore, that's why.
Below are the current steps for ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and Perplexity, taken from each company's own help pages. Last checked September 24, 2026.
Quick answer: where each AI keeps its memory
| See what it remembers | Delete one thing | Delete everything | Private chat | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | Settings › Personalization › Memory › Memory summary | Correct it in the summary, or from Sources under an answer | Delete and turn off memory | Temporary Chat |
| Claude | Settings › Memory › Topics | Open the topic › Delete | Reset memory | Incognito (ghost icon) |
| Gemini | Ask it, or Settings & help › Personal Intelligence | Delete the chats that contain it | Settings & help › Activity › Delete › All time | Temporary chat |
| Copilot | Ask "What do you know about me?" or Profile › Memory | Say "Forget that…" | Profile › Memory › Delete all Memory | Not documented |
| Perplexity | Settings › Memory › Manage memories | Trash icon | Clear all | Incognito |
Deleting a chat is not the same as deleting a memory
In most of these assistants, a conversation and the memories drawn from it are stored separately. That's a reasonable design: a memory like "prefers metric units" can come from many conversations, and you might want to keep the chat but drop the memory, or the other way around. It does mean that removing something completely can take two steps.
- ChatGPT: deleting a chat doesn't remove memory drawn from it. OpenAI's guidance is to delete the information everywhere it appears: past chats, archived chats, files, the memory summary, and any connected apps.
- Claude: when a chat is deleted, memory topics generated from it stay. Delete the topic as well.
- Gemini: memory comes from your chat history, so deleting the chats that contain something is how you remove it. If it came from a connected app, disconnect the app too.
- Copilot and Perplexity: their help pages don't say whether deleting a conversation removes memories drawn from it, so delete the memory directly.
ChatGPT
Since June, ChatGPT keeps a memory summary that a background process OpenAI calls "dreaming" updates over time. If you used the older list of saved memories, it's still available.
- See it: Settings › Personalization › Memory › Memory summary › Manage. OpenAI notes the summary doesn't show everything ChatGPT remembers. The Sources view (the book icon under an answer) shows what shaped a specific reply.
- Correct it: type the change into the box at the bottom of the summary, or highlight text in the summary to fix it.
- Delete one thing: correct or remove it in the summary or from Sources. On the older saved-memories list, open the ⋯ menu next to the memory and choose Delete.
- Delete everything: open the ⋯ menu and choose Delete and turn off memory. This is on the web now, and OpenAI says mobile is rolling out.
- Keep a chat out of memory: start a Temporary Chat. You choose Personalized or Unpersonalized before the first message, and neither creates or updates memories. OpenAI keeps a copy for up to 30 days.
- Projects: since August 20, eligible unshared projects can switch to project-only memory after they're created (⋯ › Project settings › Memory).
Claude
Claude saves memory as individual topics while you chat, and the same memory now works across Claude chat and Cowork tasks that run in the cloud. Each project keeps its own separate memory.
- See and edit it: Settings › Memory. Everything is listed under Topics. Open one to read it, then use the edit icon to change it. You can also tell Claude in the conversation what to remember or correct.
- Delete one thing: open the topic and choose Delete.
- Delete everything: Reset memory permanently deletes all memories, including project memories.
- Pause it: Pause memory keeps what's saved but stops Claude from using it or adding to it.
- Keep a chat out of memory: incognito chats (the ghost icon) aren't saved to memory or chat history.
- Sensitive topics: health, religion, politics, and similar subjects stay out of memory unless you turn on Include sensitive topics in memory. Anthropic says government ID numbers, criminal history, financial account numbers, and immigration status are never saved.
- At work: on Team and Enterprise plans, memory is off until an owner turns it on, and owners can't view or edit a member's individual memories.
- Export it: Settings › Privacy › Export data. Anthropic says all memory data is included in the export.
Gemini
Gemini's memory is built differently. Instead of a list of facts, it draws on your past chats (the setting is called Memory), the instructions you've written for it, and, if you've connected them, apps like Photos, YouTube, and Workspace through Personal Intelligence.
- See it: there's no single list of what Gemini has picked up from chats. Ask it directly, for example "Did you use any info from past chats?", or look for Previous chats under Sources. Your written instructions are at Settings & help › Personal Intelligence › Instructions for Gemini.
- Correct it: tell Gemini in the chat. For a written instruction, use More › Edit.
- Delete one thing: delete the chats that contain it from Gemini Apps Activity. If the information came from a connected app, disconnect that app too. Google says both steps are needed.
- Delete everything: Settings & help › Activity › Delete › All time. To stop Gemini from using past chats at all, turn off Memory under Settings & help › Personal Intelligence.
- Keep a chat out of memory: a temporary chat isn't saved to Activity or used to personalize answers, and it's kept for up to 72 hours. It isn't available on work or school accounts.
- Retention: Activity deletes itself after 18 months by default. You can change that to 3 or 36 months, or turn auto-delete off.
Microsoft Copilot
These steps cover the consumer Copilot app. Microsoft 365 Copilot at work has its own controls, set by your organization.
- See it: ask "What do you know about me?" The settings are at your profile icon › your name › Memory › Personalization and memory on web, Windows, and Mac. On mobile, open the menu › profile icon › Memory.
- Add, fix, or delete one thing: say "Remember that…" or "Forget that…" in the chat.
- Delete everything: Profile › Memory › Delete all Memory. This doesn't delete your conversation history.
- Turning personalization off makes Copilot forget its memories, so treat it as a delete rather than a pause.
Perplexity
- See it: Settings › Memory › Manage memories.
- Delete one thing: the trash icon next to the memory. Delete everything: Clear all. Perplexity says it may keep a log of cleared memories for up to 30 days.
- Turning Memory off doesn't clear what's already saved, so clear it first if you want it gone.
- Keep a session out of memory: Incognito mode keeps memory and search history off, and incognito sessions expire within 24 hours.
- Past searches: to stop an old session from shaping future answers, delete it from your search history.
How to make an AI forget something completely
The same checklist works in every one of them:
- Delete the memory itself: the topic, the line in the summary, or the saved item.
- Delete the chats where it came up, including archived chats and any files you uploaded that mention it.
- Disconnect any connected app it came from.
- Start a new chat and ask what it knows about the subject, to confirm it's gone.
- From then on, use a temporary, incognito, or private chat for anything you don't want remembered.
Is your memory used to train AI models?
Each assistant has a setting for whether your conversations help improve its models, and none of the five trains on business or enterprise accounts by default. Here's where the setting lives on a personal account, and what each company says about memory.
| Where the setting is | Default on personal plans | What it means for memory | |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | Settings › Data Controls › Improve the model for everyone | On | OpenAI says content you provide, including memories, may be used to improve its models unless you turn this off |
| Claude | Settings › Privacy › Help improve our AI models | You choose when you sign up | Incognito chats are never used for training, even with the setting on |
| Gemini | Settings & help › Activity › Keep Activity | On (18 and over) | Memory of past chats needs Keep Activity on, and imported memory is saved to Activity and handled the same way |
| Copilot | Profile › Privacy › Training on conversation activity | Depends on app version | Microsoft says you can turn off training and keep personalization on |
| Perplexity | Settings › Preferences › AI data retention | On | Perplexity says memory content may be used to improve its models unless this is off |
Temporary and incognito chats in ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini aren't used for training. On Gemini, turning off Keep Activity also turns off memory of past chats, so it's a trade-off rather than a free switch. If you plan to import memory into Gemini from another assistant, decide on Keep Activity first. Microsoft's updated Copilot app says prompts and responses aren't used to train its foundation models; the switch above is on the older app.
Why this is worth ten minutes
Memory is becoming the most personal part of these tools. It's what lets an assistant skip the reintroductions and start from what matters to you. It's also why a wrong or outdated memory matters more than it used to: once something is remembered, it quietly shapes every answer after it. Checking what your AI remembers, and correcting it when your life changes, keeps it working for you instead of for the version of you from six months ago.
The companies building these assistants are all moving the same way, from storing facts toward keeping them current as things change. The step after that is memory that learns from how things actually turned out, and that stays with you whichever AI you use. That's the problem we work on at Tempreon, and it's where AI memory is heading next.
Sources
Checked against each company's own documentation. Menus change often; if something here no longer matches, the linked page is the authority.
- OpenAI: Memory in ChatGPT, Temporary Chat, Data controls, Memory and new controls for ChatGPT, ChatGPT release notes, read September 24, 2026
- Anthropic: Using Claude's memory, Claude's memory works everywhere, Incognito chats, Model training settings, read September 24, 2026
- Google: Gemini Apps Help: memory, Gemini Apps activity, read September 24, 2026
- Microsoft: Microsoft Copilot privacy controls, read September 24, 2026
- Perplexity: Memory, read September 24, 2026
Frequently asked questions
- Does ChatGPT remember deleted chats?
- Deleting a chat does not remove memories ChatGPT already drew from it. OpenAI's help page says that to fully remove something, you should delete it everywhere it appears: past chats, archived chats, files, and the memory summary, and disconnect any connected apps. If memory is later turned back on, ChatGPT can create new memories from chats that are still in your history.
- Is my ChatGPT memory used to train the model?
- It can be. OpenAI says content you provide to ChatGPT, including memories, may be used to improve its models, and that you can turn this off under Settings, then Data Controls, then Improve the model for everyone. Temporary Chats are not used for training, and ChatGPT business workspaces are not trained on by default.
- How do I see what ChatGPT remembers about me?
- Go to Settings, then Personalization, then Memory, and open the memory summary. OpenAI notes the summary does not include everything ChatGPT remembers, so you can also open Sources under an answer to see what shaped that reply.
- Does deleting a chat in Claude delete its memories?
- No. Anthropic's help page says memory entries generated from a conversation are not removed when that conversation is deleted or expires. Open Settings, then Memory, find the topic under Topics, and delete it there.
- How do I turn off memory in ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini?
- In ChatGPT, the Delete and turn off memory option removes saved memory and turns the feature off. In Claude, Pause memory stops Claude from using or adding to memory while keeping what is saved, and Reset memory deletes all of it. In Gemini, turn off Memory under Settings and help, then Personal Intelligence.
- Where do I find the instructions I gave Gemini?
- Gemini keeps the instructions you write for it under Settings and help, then Personal Intelligence, then Instructions for Gemini, where you can edit or delete each one. What Gemini picks up from past chats is controlled by a separate setting called Memory on the same page.
- Do temporary chats get remembered?
- No. ChatGPT's Temporary Chat does not create or update memories, even when you choose the Personalized option. Claude's incognito chats are not saved to memory or chat history. Gemini's temporary chats are not saved to Activity or used for personalization.
- Can I move my ChatGPT memory to Claude or Gemini?
- Gemini has an Import memory option under Settings and help, though it is not available in the EEA, Switzerland, or the UK. The other common approach is to ask one assistant to summarize what it knows about you and paste that into the other. Either way, what moves is a snapshot, so it will not stay in sync as things change.