Skip to main content

How to opt out of ChatGPT using your chats to train models

A person typing on a laptop that is showing the ChatGPT generative AI website.
Matheus Bertelli / Pexels

Whether you are hoping to preserve a semblance of privacy on today's internet or you just don't feel like serving as a cog in OpenAI's model training machinery, there's an easy way (three, actually) to opt out of letting the company use your chats to fine-tune its generative models. This guide will show you how to keep your chat history to yourself on both desktop and mobile.

Recommended Videos

Difficulty

Easy

Duration

5 minutes

What You Need

  • A computer or smartphone with an internet connection

  • Your ChatGPT login, if you have one

How to opt out on desktop while logged out

One cool aspect of the ChatGPT service is that you don't actually need to log into the system to use it. But nothing says you have to trade access to your otherwise anonymous chat history for that convenience. Here's how to opt out even when you aren't logged in.

Go to settings and deselect Improve the model for everyone. From the ChatGPT home screen, click the difficult-to-notice question mark icon in the bottom-right corner. Select Settings from the popup menu and then the Data Controls tab. Disable Improve the model for everyone, and that's it.

the improve the model popup screen on chatgpt
OpenAI

How to opt out on desktop while logged in

Go to settings and deselect Improve the model for everyone. From the ChatGPT home screen, click on your profile icon in the top-left of the page, select Settings from the popup menu, and then the Data Controls tab. Deselect Improve the model for everyone option at the top of the list.

the training opt out screen for logged in chatgpt users
Open AI

How to opt out on mobile

Note that this will only disable model training on any future conversations you have with it on your device, as the rule is not retroactive.

Step 1: For iOS: Once you have the ChatGPT app open, tap the three dots on the bottom-right corner of the screen, then click on Settings, then the Data Control tab and turn off Improve the model for everyone.

Step 2: For Android: Once you have the ChatGPT app open, click on the two horizontal lines in the top-left corner of the home screen, then tap on the three horizontal dots at the bottom of the navigation pane (to the right of your username and icon). This pops up the Settings menu and, from there, simply tap the Data Controls tab and turn off Improve the model for everyone.

Andrew Tarantola
Andrew Tarantola is a journalist with more than a decade reporting on emerging technologies ranging from robotics and machine…
The ChatGPT app is transforming my Mac right before my eyes
The ChatGPT Mac app running in macOS Sequoia.

Apple is all in on AI for the Mac. It's called Apple Intelligence, and it's really only starting to get off the ground.

Meanwhile, OpenAI went ahead and launched its own ChatGPT app earlier this year, and supported it with a recent update that made it even more useful, bringing ChatGPT’s web-searching powers to its Mac app.

Read more
One of ChatGPT’s latest features comes to the free tier
ChatGPT's Canvas screen

In October, OpenAI debuted its Canvas feature, a collaborative interface that visually previews the AI response to the user's writing or coding request. However, it was only made available as a beta feature for Plus and Teams subscribers. On Tuesday, the company announced that it is bringing Canvas to all users, even at the free tier.

While one could easily mistake Canvas for a blatant knockoff of Anthropic's Artifacts feature, OpenAI is also incorporating a swath of new capabilities into Canvas. For one, Canvas is now integrated directly into the GPT-4o model so that it runs natively within ChatGPT, eliminating the need to select it specifically from the model-picking list.

Read more
ChatGPT unveils Sora with up to 20-second AI video generation
An AI generated image of a woman who walks the streets of Tokyo.

OpenAI has been promising to release its next-gen video generator model, Sora, since February. On Monday, the company finally dropped a working version of it as part of its "12 Days of OpenAI" event.

"This is a critical part of our AGI roadmap," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said during the company's live stream.

Read more