Deleting your account is permanent and cannot be undone.
Deleting your account will prevent you from using the account to access OpenAI services, including ChatGPT, API, and DALL·E. If you delete your account, we will delete your data within 30 days, except we may retain a limited set of data for longer where required or permitted by law.
When you delete the account, any active subscription should also be canceled (there may be exceptions depending on how the payment is processed). Deleted accounts are not recoverable.
How to delete your OpenAI account
Option A: Submit a request to our Privacy Portal
Click on Make a Privacy Request in the top right corner:
2. Select the most applicable option for your account:
Email Address: select if you have access to the email address you want to delete.
Phone Number: select if you no longer have access to the email address that was used to create a ChatGPT account. This option includes a verification step using the phone number associated with that account.
This step only works if there is a phone number number added to your ChatGPT account and you still have access to it to receive a one-time code.
I don't have a ChatGPT account: select if you want to exercise other privacy rights (deletion of account data is not available for this option)
3. Click Delete my ChatGPT account:
Follow the steps to submit your email for account deletion.
If you select Phone Number, we will ask you to enter an email address that you can access. We'll send you an email to that email address to login to our Privacy Portal. Then you will be requested to provide both the Phone number and Email associated with your OpenAI account. The phone number you provide must be the sane as the one you provided when you created your OpenAI account - OR - when you created your first API key in platform.openai.com.
⚠️ Important: If you have an active Plus subscription but don't have a phone number associated with your account (or can't access it) then please let us know so we can help get your subscription canceled.
⚠️ Important: You'll get an SMS to the phone number you provide with a link to click on that takes you to our Privacy Portal. It is only after this step is done that your Account Deletion request is actually submitted.
Option B: Self-serve in ChatGPT
ChatGPT Webpage
In the top right, click your profile icon.
Click Settings.
In Settings click Data Controls.
Under Delete account click Delete.
You may only delete your account if you have logged in within the last 10 minutes.
If you haven't logged in within the last 10 minutes then you'll need to sign in again.
Confirmation screen will appear where you need to type your account email + "DELETE" into the input fields to unlock the "Permanently delete my account" button
Once the inputs are filled out you unlock the "Permanently delete my account" button
Click "Permanently delete my account" to delete your account.
Mobile Apps (iOS and Android)
To delete your account using the mobile app, please refer to the Help Center article for your device (iOS or Android):
Common issues
Chat retention for deleted vs archived chats
Deleted chats are hard deleted from our systems within 30 days, unless they have previously been de-identified and disassociated from your account or we have to keep them for security or legal reasons.
You cannot recover chats once you delete them. If you want to remove a chat from being visible in your chat history but retain it in your account, you should use the archive function.
Please refer to this article to understand how content may be used to improve model performance and the choices that you have.
Archived chats are retained just like your unarchived chats. Archiving a chat simply removes it from your chat history sidebar. Archived chats can be found and managed in your ChatGPT Settings.
For more see How chat retention works in ChatGPT.
User content opt-out
ChatGPT, DALL·E and our other services for individuals
When you use ChatGPT, DALL-E, and our other services for individuals, we may use the content you provide to improve model performance. Learn more about your choices on how we use your content to improve model performance here.
Enterprise services (such as API and ChatGPT Enterprise)
OpenAI does not train on business data. Learn more about our Enterprise privacy commitments here.
If I delete my account can I create a new account with the same email?
Yes. You can create a new account using the same email address after 30 days.
Can I reactivate my account after it's been deleted?
No. But you can create a new account with the same email address.
Click “Sign up” on the ChatGPT login page or our API login page. There are a couple caveats of which to be mindful:
Email addresses: You can use the same email address after 30 days.
Phone numbers: New accounts are still subject to our limit of 3 accounts per phone number. Deleted accounts also count toward this limit. Deleting an account does not free up another spot. A phone number can only ever be used up to 3 times for verification to generate the first API key for your account on platform.openai.com.
Phone verification is not required to create an OpenAI account.
Phone verification is required for a new account to generate their first API key on platform.openai.com.
Note: We do not permit reactivating email addresses that were previously were associated with an Enterprise organization, or were disabled for a violation of our terms or policies.
Can I still use ChatGPT without logging in?
Yes. Please note that you can only save a conversation by logging in or creating an account. While logged out, we only support one conversation at a time. Please refer to our FAQ for more information.
We don't support unlinking a phone number from an existing account
We do not allow you to unlink phone numbers from existing accounts.
How many times can I use my phone number to create OpenAI accounts?
While the location where phone verification occurs has changed from account creation to first API key generation, the requirements around phone verification are still the following:
A phone number can only ever be used for phone verification up to 3 times.
This means if you have 3 OpenAI accounts you can use the same number for all three when completing phone verification on each initial API key generation across those three accounts.
With some exceptions, we do allow consumers who have deleted their ChatGPT account to re-register using the same phone number. If you have permanently deleted your ChatGPT consumer account (and your account was not disabled for a violation of our terms or policies), we will remove the phone number from our system after 30 days. Once that happens, you may sign up again with the same number.
See our Phone Verification FAQ.
Can I change my authentication method after account deletion?
⚠️ Deleting your account does NOT allow you to change your authentication method.
That said, if you originally signed up for OpenAI / ChatGPT with an email and password then in future logins you can choose Google/Apple login allowing users in that situation to then login either way.
Why do I get the error, "You do not have an account because it has been deleted or deactivated"?
If you get this error when you try to login or create an account it means the account associated with the email address you're trying to use to sign up for / login to an account underwent an account deletion:
This will happen either because you deleted your account in ChatGPT -- or -- you deleted your account by submitting the email to our Privacy Portal for deletion.