What types of data does OpenAI keep or delete when a user cancels their account?
Executive summary
OpenAI’s published user-facing deletion process says accounts and most user data are removed from active systems within 30 days after a deletion request, though the company may retain a “limited set of data” longer when legally required [1]. Separately, a 2025 federal court order required OpenAI to preserve consumer ChatGPT and API content—including deleted chats—from May–September 2025 onward, producing a secure, segregated legal hold that affects non‑enterprise users [2] [3].
1. What OpenAI says happens when you cancel or delete an account
OpenAI’s help pages state that when you delete an account you initiate a deletion process and “we will delete your data within 30 days,” with the important caveat that the company may retain a limited set of data longer where required or permitted by law [1] [4]. The help documentation also notes account deletion is permanent and cannot be undone and that deleted accounts cannot be reactivated or used again with the same email [5] [6]. For workspace and enterprise products, admins control retention and OpenAI’s enterprise materials say deleted conversations are removed within 30 days unless legal retention is required [7].
2. The legal wrinkle: court-ordered preservation that overrides normal deletion
Reporting and OpenAI’s public statements show a U.S. magistrate judge ordered OpenAI to retain and segregate “output log data that would otherwise be deleted,” and that order forced OpenAI to preserve consumer ChatGPT and API content for litigation purposes; OpenAI has appealed [3] [2]. OpenAI’s follow-up explains the earlier court order’s obligations ended September 26, 2025, and that the company has returned to standard practices for new data going forward—but it also confirmed it “will securely store limited historical April–September 2025 user data” from the period covered by the litigation [2].
3. Product and account type differences matter
OpenAI’s retention rules vary by product and contract. Consumer ChatGPT and standard API usage historically had different default behaviors than enterprise/paid business offerings: enterprise customers can get data isolation and opt-outs for training, and Zero Data Retention (ZDR) or similar enterprise contractual provisions exist that exempt business customers from the consumer legal hold, per company statements and reporting [7] [3]. Documentation and third‑party summaries also say API inputs/outputs have long been retained for limited periods (frequently cited as up to 30 days for abuse monitoring) unless the customer has explicit contractual zero‑retention arrangements [8] [9].
4. What “deleted” actually means in practice
OpenAI’s user‑facing promise—removal of data from active systems within 30 days—applies but is explicitly subject to legal holds and archival obligations [1] [2]. Third‑party reporting and technical analyses argue the court directive requires preserving multiple system artifacts (logs, stored outputs, backups) that users previously assumed would be purged when deleting chats; those reviews caution that deleted content may remain in a segregated archive during litigation [10] [3].
5. What is not (clearly) in available reporting
Available sources do not mention a definitive, comprehensive public inventory of every specific field or low‑level artifact OpenAI keeps after deletion (for example, which metadata fields, logs, or backup snapshots are retained) beyond high‑level descriptions of “limited historical” archives and legal‑hold preservation (not found in current reporting). Likewise, available sources do not provide a public list of exactly how long OpenAI will retain litigated archives after a case concludes beyond saying they were preserved during the order’s effective period [2].
6. Competing perspectives and implicit agendas
OpenAI frames its post‑deletion practice as a standard privacy posture—30‑day removal from active systems with exceptions for law or security—and emphasizes enterprise options for stricter retention rules [1] [7]. Legal critics and privacy advocates emphasize the court’s preservation order as evidence that user deletions are not absolute: those critics highlight that deleted chats were kept under legal hold and that the industry standard of deletion can be undermined by litigation [3] [10]. Some vendor and consultancy pieces amplify the worst‑case implication—that deleted chats may be preserved “indefinitely” under court order—while OpenAI notes the legal order’s scope changed after September 26, 2025 and that it is challenging the order [3] [2].
7. Practical takeaways for users deciding to cancel
If you delete your consumer ChatGPT account, expect OpenAI to remove most data from active systems within roughly 30 days but to retain certain limited records longer if required by law or litigation [1] [2]. Enterprise customers should examine contracts and ask about Zero Data Retention or retention minima, because enterprise workspaces can set different policies and are generally excluded from consumer legal holds [7] [3]. If you need certainty about particular data (billing records, uploads, model training uses), you must request specifics through OpenAI’s Privacy Portal or your contractual channels, because public documentation provides high‑level rules rather than an itemized audit of retained fields [1] [11].
Limitations: this analysis relies solely on the provided documents and reporting; the sources do not publish an exhaustive technical list of every retained artifact or the final disposition schedule for legally preserved archives beyond the statements cited (not found in current reporting).