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Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →A May 13, 2025 court order required OpenAI to preserve and segregate ChatGPT output logs that otherwise would have been deleted—including chats users had asked to delete. OpenAI objected on privacy grounds. The broad, ongoing preservation obligation later ended, according to OpenAI and the court record; it is not a rule requiring all ChatGPT chats to be kept indefinitely today.
What the May 2025 order required
In copyright litigation brought by The New York Times and other news plaintiffs, the plaintiffs sought ChatGPT output logs as potentially relevant evidence. OpenAI objected to the breadth of the requested retention, raising privacy and proportionality concerns. Those were the parties’ positions in a discovery dispute, not findings that the logs proved infringement or that every conversation was relevant.
On May 13, 2025, U.S. Magistrate Judge Ona T. Wang ordered OpenAI to preserve and segregate “all output log data that would otherwise be deleted” going forward until further order. The requirement included data that might otherwise have been deleted at a user’s request. The order was a preservation measure: it required keeping covered logs apart from ordinary deletion, not immediately handing every chat to The New York Times. Read the May 13 order.
Why OpenAI objected
OpenAI publicly challenged the breadth of the preservation requirement and sought reconsideration. In June 2025, the company argued that the order raised serious user-privacy concerns and could prevent deletion of chats users had chosen to remove. That was OpenAI’s account of the order’s impact, reported by Ars Technica; it should not be confused with a court finding that all users’ chats had been disclosed.
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When the broad preservation obligation ended
OpenAI said its obligations under the broad ongoing order ended on September 26, 2025, and that it returned to its standard retention practices. The court’s later record says the parties had stipulated to terminate those ongoing obligations, with the stipulation entered October 9, 2025. These dates describe separate steps: the date OpenAI reported the obligation ended and the date the stipulation was entered. OpenAI’s October 22 update and the December 2 ruling provide the respective accounts.
The separate dispute over a 20-million-log sample
The end of broad prospective preservation did not resolve every discovery dispute. On December 2, 2025, Judge Wang denied OpenAI’s request to reconsider a separate order concerning production of a de-identified sample of 20 million consumer ChatGPT output logs. That was a limited historical sample, not an order to preserve every new conversation indefinitely. The ruling also records the termination of the ongoing broad preservation obligation.
OpenAI described the sample as randomly drawn from consumer conversations dated December 2022 through November 2024 and said business and API customers were excluded. Those details are OpenAI’s description, not a basis for assuming that all consumer conversations—or business and API data—were included. The available sources do not establish the final status of OpenAI’s later challenge to the sample-production orders. OpenAI’s explanation of the sample.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What deleting a ChatGPT chat means under the published policy
OpenAI’s Help Center says that deleting a chat removes it from the account view immediately and schedules permanent deletion from OpenAI’s systems within 30 days. The schedule has exceptions: the data may already have been de-identified and disassociated from the account, or OpenAI may need to retain it for security or legal obligations. So “deleted” from the visible history and permanently deleted from systems are not necessarily simultaneous. See OpenAI’s chat retention and deletion guidance.
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In its October 22, 2025 litigation update, OpenAI said deleted conversations and Temporary Chats would be automatically deleted within 30 days, subject to legal or security exceptions. It also said that limited historical data from April through September 2025 remained stored under a separate demand. That dated statement concerned an additional, limited retention matter; it did not mean the broad May order remained in force. OpenAI’s update.
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