How long does OpenAI keep conversation logs and backups after I delete my ChatGPT account?
Executive summary
OpenAI’s baseline policy has been that deleted ChatGPT conversations are removed from its systems within 30 days, but a 2025 U.S. court preservation order forced OpenAI to retain deleted and “temporary” chats for litigation purposes until that order was narrowed and largely ended on September 26, 2025 (OpenAI says 30‑day deletions resume; the court hold affected Free, Plus, Pro and Team users) [1] [2] [3]. Available sources say some historical logs saved during the preservation period remain accessible to plaintiffs and that some classes of customers (Enterprise, Edu, Zero Data Retention API) were exempt from the broad hold [1] [2] [3].
1. What OpenAI’s stated deletion timeline was before the court order
OpenAI’s documented practice for consumer ChatGPT accounts was to schedule deleted chats for permanent removal from its systems within 30 days — the company described deleted chats, Temporary Chats and API inputs/outputs as being removed from OpenAI logs after about 30 days unless legal obligations required retention [1] [4].
2. How a court order disrupted that practice
In May 2025 a federal judge ordered OpenAI to “preserve and segregate all output log data that would otherwise be deleted,” effectively pausing the 30‑day deletion policy for millions of Free, Plus, Pro and Team users so plaintiffs could inspect outputs for alleged copyright misuse [2] [5]. Reporting and legal filings described the order as forcing OpenAI to keep deleted and temporary chats, even when users had attempted to delete them [6] [7].
3. Scope: who was and wasn’t affected
The preservation order targeted standard consumer tiers (Free/Plus/Pro/Team) and API logs in the litigation context; it explicitly did not apply to ChatGPT Enterprise, ChatGPT Edu, and API customers using “Zero Data Retention” endpoints, which remained governed by separate retention arrangements [2] [8] [1].
4. How long the court hold lasted and what changed
Multiple outlets and OpenAI’s own statements show the broad preservation requirement was in force during mid‑2025 and that OpenAI stopped the blanket retention for new data on September 26, 2025 after a judge narrowed or terminated the earlier order; OpenAI said it returned to standard retention practices after that cutoff, while historical logs preserved during the hold remained available as part of the evidence set [1] [3] [9] [10].
5. What remains uncertain or limited in reporting
Available sources do not publish an exhaustive, itemized list of exactly which deleted conversations from which accounts remain preserved, nor do they specify retention schedules for the preserved historical data beyond “available for plaintiffs” or “securely stored” language; precise internal backup retention windows and whether backups persist longer than 30 days in specific legal holds are described in general terms but not fully enumerated in the reporting cited here [1] [4] [3].
6. Backups, compliance APIs and extra retention windows
OpenAI’s help documentation says internal backups can retain files for up to an additional 30 days after a conversation expires and that Compliance API access may behave differently while retention windows and legal exceptions apply; reporting on the litigation also indicates OpenAI had to segregate logs so plaintiffs could search outputs, implying that preserved logs were kept under controlled access [4] [2].
7. Two competing narratives: privacy vs. discovery
OpenAI framed the order as a privacy breach that “weakened” promised user controls and said only a small, audited legal/security team would access preserved data [2] [5]. Plaintiffs and the court defended preservation as necessary to find evidence of alleged copyright‑infringing outputs and to prevent deletion of relevant material; later rulings narrowed the hold, balancing discovery needs against user privacy [2] [3] [10].
8. Practical takeaway for users who deleted their account or chats
If you deleted chats before the May 2025 preservation order and those chats were captured under the court hold, those specific logs may have been preserved for litigation and could remain in evidence pools created during that period [2] [3]. For deletions after September 26, 2025, OpenAI’s public position is that deleted chats again follow the standard deletion schedule (about 30 days), except where specific legal requirements or flagged accounts create exceptions [1] [3].
Limitations and final note: this analysis relies on public reporting and OpenAI’s statements collected in the cited sources; courts, OpenAI, and plaintiffs have described evolving orders and exemptions, and available reporting does not detail every account or backup copy retained — for account‑specific certainty, available sources do not mention a public way for users to confirm whether a particular deleted chat was preserved during the litigation [1] [3] [4].