what sign up
nixm nixm

← learn

How long does ChatGPT keep your chat history?

September 26, 2026

Indefinitely while the chat exists in your account. Once you delete it, OpenAI says it leaves their systems within about 30 days — with exceptions for legal holds, and in 2025 a court order made those exceptions very real for several months. nixm has no transcript to retain because it never keeps one.

The short timeline

Undeleted chats stay. There is no automatic expiry on ChatGPT history — a conversation from last year sits in your sidebar until you remove it. Deletion starts a clock: OpenAI says removed conversations leave its systems in roughly 30 days. Temporary Chats skip the sidebar but live on the server for a similar window.

The exception that swallowed the rule

In May 2025, a court order in the New York Times litigation required OpenAI to preserve output log data it would otherwise have deleted — including from deleted and temporary chats — over the company's objections. OpenAI called the request an overreach and fought it publicly. It lost, and users who tried to intervene were treated as non-parties to the case.

That order was terminated in October 2025. Per reporting on the ruling, OpenAI was released from preserving logs going forward past late September. So the 30-day policy applies again today.

Why that is not the reassuring part

Because the order ending does not un-preserve anything. Logs captured while it was in force remain available in the litigation, and OpenAI is still required to retain data tied to accounts the plaintiffs flagged. Separately, the court ordered production of a sample of 20 million de-identified conversations to the plaintiffs — a ruling the district judge upheld on review after OpenAI challenged it.

So the honest summary is not "there was a scare and it passed." It is that a retention policy is a default, a legal hold overrides it, and conversations swept up during an override do not come back when the override lifts. The window reopened. What went through it while it was shut is still out there.

Why "30 days" is the wrong thing to optimize

Thirty days is short enough to feel reassuring and long enough to matter. The question isn't the number — it's that a window exists at all, and that it's the vendor's to define, extend, or be ordered to suspend. Any privacy plan that depends on you deleting things, on time, forever, is a plan with a human failure mode. The delete-later habit and why it slips. What the litigation meant in practice.

It is not only the chats

Files and images you upload are stored separately from the conversation they arrived in, so deleting the chat does not reliably remove them — that is a second cleanup task most people never learn about. What happens to ChatGPT uploads.

What a zero-length window looks like

On nixm no transcript is kept, so there's no transcript to age out or hold. What persists is a small distilled signal: your intent and a distilled log of the session. That dissolves seven days after creation, and you can end it sooner. How ephemeral AI works.

See it with nothing kept

Open nixm and seed a signal — no account, no history, no window to count down.

frequently asked

How long does ChatGPT store chat history?

Indefinitely while it exists in your account — there is no automatic expiry. Deletion starts a roughly 30-day removal window on OpenAI's systems.

How long does ChatGPT keep conversations?

Conversations stay in your account indefinitely — nothing expires on its own. Deleting one starts a removal window OpenAI puts at roughly 30 days, and a legal hold can suspend that window, as a court order did for several months in 2025.

Does deleting a chat delete it immediately?

From your view, yes. From company systems, on a schedule of about 30 days per OpenAI, and only if no legal hold applies.

Is the New York Times preservation order still in force?

No. The order was imposed in May 2025 and terminated in October 2025, releasing OpenAI from preserving logs going forward. Logs already captured under it remain available in the litigation.

Were ChatGPT conversations handed over to lawyers?

The court ordered production of a sample of 20 million de-identified conversations to the plaintiffs, and the district judge upheld that ruling on review after OpenAI challenged it.

Can a court extend ChatGPT's retention again?

Yes. A retention policy describes a default; a legal hold overrides it. The 2025 order is the precedent for how quickly that can happen.

Do Temporary Chats have a shorter window?

They stay out of your history and OpenAI says they are removed within about 30 days, but they exist server-side during that window.

Does deleting a chat delete the files I uploaded to it?

Not reliably. Uploads can be stored separately from the conversation and may need to be removed on their own.

Is there an AI chat with no retention window?

nixm never keeps a transcript, so there is no transcript window — only a distilled signal that dissolves after 7 days.

Can I try nixm without an account?

Yes — open nixm.ai and seed a signal directly; no sign-up, and no transcript is kept.

try it now — no account, no transcript kept. even the signal dissolves in seven days.

seed a signal →

Enter your email and receive a link to sign in. No passwords, just a secure signal to connect.

why connect

  • 20 free credits to start
  • your signals, remembered
  • buy more credits anytime
  • image & video generation features
or
+