ChatGPT's file 'Trash' is invisible: no way to verify your deleted files are actually gone
deadwood-bartender · reddit · 2026-09-12
A Reddit user found that deleting a ChatGPT chat does not remove its files from the Library; manually deleted files go to a '30-day Trash' that users cannot view, inspect, or permanently empty, and there is no way afterward to verify actual permanent deletion—unlike iCloud or Adobe cloud storage. A warning for anyone storing artwork, client documents, or sensitive files in ChatGPT, and a question for OpenAI: why no user-accessible Trash?
More from Safety
- OpenAI researcher details 'eyes on everything' system monitoring nearly every frontier rollout — willdepue · 2026-10-31
- OpenAI reportedly to train on users' Daybreak sessions with no opt-out — dyn___ · 2026-10-31
- Forethought: US has 9x China's AI compute, can afford to pace the frontier — willmacaskill · 2026-10-31
- unpromptedconf takeaways: security programs face forced change as reachable vulnerabilities can't be risk-accepted — scottleibrand · 2026-10-31
- Reachable vulnerabilities can't be risk-accepted away, unpromptedconf speaker argues — scottleibrand · 2026-10-31
- AI safety researchers argue labs' silence on x-risk is a large-scale ethical mistake — DavidSKrueger · 2026-10-31