What ChatGPT remembers about your child: where it is, how to read it, how to delete it

Your child tells ChatGPT that maths is going badly, that they fell out with their best friend and which school they go to. Weeks later, in a brand new conversation, the AI has it all to hand without anyone repeating it. That is not a glitch: it is the memory feature, on by default, quietly building a summary of what it has learned about them. The surprise is not that it exists. The surprise is that the summary it shows does not include everything it remembers, that switching it off does not delete the chats, and that parental controls let you turn it off but never let you read the conversations.

Where it is

In ChatGPT, signed in: Settings, Personalization, Memory. That is where the memory summary sits, with the time of its last update at the top. OpenAI's own help page says the summary captures the most important details but not everything ChatGPT remembers from the chats, and gives the only complete method: ask in chat. So reading it has two parts. You open the summary, and you also type into a new chat: what do you remember about me, what do you remember about my family, what do you remember about my school.

What deleting actually deletes

• To correct one thing: type what should change into the text box at the bottom of the summary (forget the name of my school), or highlight a passage in the summary and correct it directly.
• To delete everything: the three dot menu on the summary has the option Delete and turn off memory. According to OpenAI, in September 2026 it is available on the web and rolling out to mobile.
• That does not delete past chats. And if memory is switched back on later, ChatGPT may create new memories from the chats still in the history, including old ones.
• For something to disappear completely it has to be removed from every place it appears: past chats, archived chats, uploaded files, the summary itself and any connected apps.
• If the account still runs the older saved memories system (Settings, Memory, Saved memories), those are deleted one by one there, and OpenAI may keep a log of what was deleted for up to 30 days.

And one feature worth more than all of the above: Temporary Chat. When you open a new conversation there is a pill shaped button, Temporary, in the top right corner. A temporary chat creates no memories, does not appear in the history unless you deliberately save it, is not used to train the models, and OpenAI keeps a copy for up to 30 days for safety reasons. It is the tool for private matters, and it is the first thing worth showing.

What parental controls can and cannot do

Under Settings, Parental controls, Add family member, you link your child's account to yours by phone number or email. Once linked, you decide whether ChatGPT uses saved memories to personalise replies (on by default where the feature exists, off by default in some regions), whether their conversations help improve the model (on by default), the quiet hours when ChatGPT cannot be used, and whether voice mode and study mode are on. What you cannot do, and OpenAI says so plainly, is read their conversations, their history or their activity in real time. Your child can unlink the accounts at any time, and if they do, you are notified. The minimum age for an account, 13 with a parent's permission, is covered in a separate article with its own check date.

Gemini and Claude work differently. Gemini restricts personalisation with memory of past chats to adults over 18, so a child's account does not have it; what it does keep is Gemini Apps Activity, which you review and delete at myactivity.google.com/product/gemini, with auto delete after 18 months by default and temporary chats kept for 72 hours. Claude has memory on by default even on the free plan, shows it by topic under Settings, Memory, and offers an incognito chat, but requires users to be 18, so in principle it is not a question for minors.

The Sunday quarter of an hour

• Together, with the phone in your child's hands, not yours. Reviewing the memory behind their back guarantees a different account next time, and loses the only thing that matters, which is that they tell you.
• Open Settings, Personalization, Memory and have them read the summary out loud. There is nearly always a surprise, and it is nearly always the child who is surprised.
• In a new chat: what do you remember about me, about my family, about my school. That is the part the summary does not show.
• Delete what should not be there: friends' names, address, school, health, feelings about someone. Typing it into the box under the summary is enough.
• A glance at Settings, Data Controls: Improve the model for everyone, off.
• And the house rule, written where it can be seen: private things go in a temporary chat. Not as a punishment, but the way you close the bathroom door.