⚙️ Stop retyping the same ChatGPT prompt: 3 settings that make it work your way

What’s new: These three settings have been sitting inside ChatGPT for a while, and plenty of people never bother setting them up correctly. 

Custom Instructions is permanent context you control. You tell ChatGPT one time what you do for a living and how you want answers written, and it applies those instructions across your chats. No more pasting “you are a world-class expert in” like a peasant.

Memory holds onto useful specifics across conversations. Say you live in Barcelona, hate cilantro or your company sells software, and ChatGPT can refer to those details later instead of asking again. Saved memories are available for free. Plus and Pro tiers give ChatGPT a much broader picture of you.

Temporary Chat is the closest thing ChatGPT has to an incognito window. It doesn’t appear in your chat history, doesn’t use or create memories for personalization and isn’t used to train OpenAI’s models. OpenAI may still keep a copy for up to 30 days for safety purposes. Useful when you want to ask something you’d rather not scroll past next Tuesday.

⏱️ The 60-second setup

For Custom Instructions

1. On web and desktop: Profile icon > Settings > Personalization > Custom Instructions > turn Enable customization on.
2. On iPhone and Android: Profile icon > Settings > Customize ChatGPT > turn Enable customization on.

Fill in what you want ChatGPT to know about you and how you want it to respond. Changes take effect across your chats.

For Memory

1. Profile icon > Settings > Personalization > look for Memory or Memory Summary.

Turn Memory on if it isn’t already. From there, you can review what ChatGPT remembers, manage or delete memories or turn Memory off.

You can also just ask:

“What do you remember about me?”

Do try that one. It’s a little humbling.

For Temporary Chat

Start a new chat and look for the pill-shaped Temporary button at the top-right corner.

Tap it before you start the conversation. ChatGPT will show that you’re in a Temporary Chat.

Menu labels and locations have a habit of moving around between app updates, so if something looks different, check Settings > Personalization before you go hunting through every menu like you dropped a contact lens.

📋 Paste this into Custom Instructions

Be terse and direct. Skip unnecessary disclaimers, apologies and reminders that you’re an AI. Context about me: [your job, your city, what you’re usually working on]. When you give advice, lead with the specific recommendation, then the reasoning underneath it. If missing information would materially change your answer, ask me one clarifying question. Otherwise, make a reasonable assumption and keep going.

Swap the bracketed part for your actual life. That’s the whole trick.

⚠️ The catch: Memory isn’t identical on every plan. Free users get saved memories. Plus and Pro also let ChatGPT reference useful information from past conversations, giving it more context without you deliberately saving every detail.

Memory isn’t a perfect filing cabinet. ChatGPT can update, combine or remove memories as your conversations change. Its memory summary may not show every bit of context influencing a response, which is why it’s worth checking periodically.

Deleting a chat doesn’t necessarily delete a saved memory that came from it. If there’s something you really want ChatGPT to forget, remove the memory, too.

On privacy: OpenAI says Temporary Chats don’t appear in your history, don’t use or create memories for personalization and aren’t used to train its models. But OpenAI may keep a copy for up to 30 days for safety purposes.

Another wrinkle worth knowing: Temporary Chat still follows your Custom Instructions. OpenAI says limited context from prior conversations may be used in rare cases for safety and security.

So “incognito” means the conversation stays out of your history and personalization. It does not mean it vaporizes from OpenAI’s servers the instant you close the window.

Keep Custom Instructions broad. Tell it to write like Hemingway and enjoy the four-word answers when you ask it to debug a spreadsheet formula.