By skyforbes 
When I first switched from ChatGPT to Grok, I noticed how hard it was for me to delete old chats — even the ones that didn’t carry much value anymore. Reddit is full of threads like “why do I feel bad when deleting old conversations.”
The “what if I need it later” feeling is very similar to what I faced when I started keeping notes: saving summaries, thoughts, and ideas “just in case” only sustains an illusion of productivity. This kind of digital hoarding gives a sense of control in the moment, but in the long run it leads to clutter.
And OpenAI, of course, isn’t exactly opposed to making deletion harder (same goes for their terrible chat search UX — virtually non-existent). They still need all that data to train the model or to deliver a “better” user experience (better for whom isn’t entirely clear yet).
I try to stick to digital hygiene — and, forgive me, minimalism — partly for privacy:
— Most “one-off chats” and “sensitive topics” go into temporary chats.
— I delete previous chats every time I open the conversations list.
— Before I ask something, I search by keywords; chances are I already have a chat with similar context and just continue there. That’s even better because the outline is already in the thread.
— I sort important things into folders. It’s easier to delete from folders.
— If a thought in a chat is worth keeping, I manually transfer it into my knowledge base.
— I keep neutral topics — for example, when I request deep research on broad questions.
— If I’m worried I might delete something important, I ask for a summary of the ideas at the end, reread it, and, if needed, write a separate note for the future.
As a result, I’m gradually arriving at something like zero inbox: the important conversations (a minority) get sorted into folders and moved into the knowledge base; the rest get deleted. I find this very helpful because it deflates the illusion of “productive” chatting with AI. If by the end of a conversation I can’t articulate my own thought, turn it into a note, write a post, or at least hold the idea in mind, take an action, and delete the chat without anxiety — then why start the conversation at all?