How to delete your AI chat history in ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude, and stop it being used for training

Deleting your chat history in an AI assistant is easy. The catch is that deleting a chat, stopping your chats being used for training and clearing what the assistant remembers about you are three separate things, and doing one doesn’t do the others. This tutorial covers all three in ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude, plus each app’s private chat mode, using OpenAI’s, Google’s and Anthropic’s own help pages as of October 2026. Menu labels shift between app versions, so if a name doesn’t match exactly, look for the closest option in the same place.

The short version

ChatGPT

Delete one chat. In the chat history sidebar, hover over the conversation, click the three dots next to its title, select Delete and confirm. On iPhone, OpenAI’s older app instructions say to press and hold the conversation title in your history and tap Delete.

Delete all chats. Go to Settings, then Data controls, and select Delete all chats. OpenAI warns that this can’t be undone and that it also affects chats inside projects. It doesn’t remove files saved in your Library, which you have to delete separately.

Archive instead. The same three-dot menu has Archive, which hides a chat from the sidebar without deleting it. OpenAI says archiving “does not change its retention period”. Archived chats are listed under Settings, then Data controls, where you can unarchive or delete them.

What happens next. A deleted chat disappears from your account straight away and is scheduled for permanent deletion from OpenAI’s systems within 30 days, with exceptions for data that has been de-identified or must be kept for security or legal reasons. OpenAI says deleted chats can’t be retrieved through the app, its APIs or support. Its ChatGPT agent help page gives a longer window of 90 days for agent chats and their screenshots.

Stop training. On the web, open your account menu, select Settings, then Data controls, and turn off Improve the model for everyone. On iOS and Android, open the sidebar, tap your profile icon, then Data controls. When you’re signed in, the choice applies to your account on every device. Turning it off doesn’t delete or hide your existing chats. OpenAI says Business, Enterprise and Edu workspaces aren’t used for training by default.

Clear memory. Deleting a chat doesn’t delete a memory ChatGPT saved from it. Go to Settings, then Personalization, then Memory, where you can delete individual saved memories, clear them all or turn memory off. The memory summary’s three-dot menu also has Delete and turn off memory. If you turn off Reference chat history, OpenAI says information remembered from past chats is scheduled for deletion within 30 days.

Gemini

Delete one chat. On a computer, open the side panel (click Menu if your chats are hidden), hover over the chat, click More, then Delete. Google says deleting a chat from your pinned and recent chats also deletes it from Gemini Apps Activity.

Delete everything, or a date range. At gemini.google.com, open Activity. Above your activity, click Delete and choose All time, or pick an hour, a day or a custom range. Next to any single entry you can choose Delete activity item. Google says that once you delete activity, it immediately starts removing it from the product and its systems.

Set auto-delete. By default, Gemini deletes activity older than 18 months. On the Activity page you can change that to 3 or 36 months, or turn auto-delete off.

Stop training. Gemini ties training to one setting, Keep Activity. On the Activity page, click the On control near the top and choose Turn off, or Turn off and delete activity to do both at once. Google’s Privacy Hub says that with Keep Activity off, future chats won’t appear in your activity and won’t be used to train its AI models unless you send feedback. They are still kept with your account for up to 72 hours so Gemini can respond.

Two caveats matter here. Google says chats already reviewed by human reviewers are disconnected from your account and kept for up to three years, and deleting your activity doesn’t remove them. Turning off Keep Activity also switches off features that depend on it, including memory and, as our Gemini Spark guide notes, Google’s Spark agent.

Clear memory. Go to gemini.google.com, click Settings & help, then Personal context, and turn Memory off. Google says that if you delete a chat, there might be a short delay before Gemini stops using it to personalize your responses. To switch off Gemini on your devices entirely, see how to turn off Gemini.

Claude

Delete one chat. On the web, find the chat in the sidebar or under Chats and tasks, click the ⋮ button on the right, choose Delete and confirm. On iPhone, touch and hold the conversation in your chat list and tap Delete, or tap ⋯ at the top right of an open chat. On Android, tap ⋮ at the top right of the open chat.

Delete many chats. On the web, open Chats and tasks, click ⋮ on a chat and choose Select, tick the chats you want or Select all, then click Delete. On Android, tap the checklist icon at the top right of the chat list, tick the chats and tap the trash icon.

What happens next. Anthropic says a deleted chat leaves your history immediately and is deleted from its back-end systems within 30 days. Your projects and account information stay until you delete them or your account. Deleting your account removes all your Claude data, permanently.

Stop training. Select your name, then Settings, then Privacy, and toggle off Help Improve our AI models. The steps are the same on mobile. Anthropic says new chats and coding sessions then won’t be used for future model training, but data already included in training that has started stays in those models. With the setting on, it may keep de-identified data for up to five years. These steps apply to the Free, Pro and Max plans; Anthropic has separate guidance for its commercial products.

Clear memory. Anthropic says memory entries created from a chat aren’t removed when the chat is deleted. Go to Settings, then Memory: everything Claude remembers is listed under Topics, where you can edit or delete any item. The Generate memory from chats toggle lets you Pause memory or Reset memory, which permanently deletes all memories. Our beginner’s guide to Claude explains how memory works in projects.

Use private chats instead

If you’d rather not create history in the first place, each app has a mode for that:

• ChatGPT Temporary Chat. Open a new chat and select Temporary. It stays out of your history, doesn’t create or update memories and isn’t used to improve OpenAI’s models while it stays temporary. OpenAI may keep a copy for up to 30 days for safety. If you save it as a regular chat, your normal settings apply.
• Gemini Temporary chat. At gemini.google.com, click Temporary chat next to New chat. It won’t appear in your activity or recent chats, isn’t used to train Google’s models and is kept for 72 hours. It needs a personal Google Account and can’t use Gems or personalization.
• Claude incognito chat. Start a new chat outside a project and click the ghost icon in the upper right. It won’t appear in your history or memory and isn’t used to improve Claude, even if model training is on. Anthropic keeps it for 30 days by default.

Work and school accounts

Organisation accounts follow the administrator’s rules. Google says work or school users can’t delete Gemini chats, because their administrator controls Gemini Apps Activity. Anthropic says deleting chats on Claude Team and Enterprise only removes them from your visible history, and Enterprise organisations can set their own retention periods. If you use Microsoft’s assistant at work, our guide on how to turn off Copilot covers its settings.

Which settings to change

• You just want a tidy sidebar: delete or archive individual chats.
• You don’t want your chats used for training: turn off the training setting. It matters more than deleting chats.
• You don’t want the assistant to remember things about you: clear and turn off memory as well, since deleting chats doesn’t always do it.
• You want to try something sensitive once: use a private chat from the start.

For how the three assistants compare more broadly, read ChatGPT vs Claude vs Gemini, or see the ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude profiles.