ChatGPT Unlocks Powerful Project Feature For All Users

OpenAI is continuing its trend of bringing premium features to its free user base, and the latest addition is a big one. The Projects feature is now available for all ChatGPT users, offering a powerful new way to organize your conversations.

What Are ChatGPT Projects?

Think of Projects as dedicated workspaces or folders for your chats. Instead of having a single, long list of conversations about everything from vacation planning to coding help, you can group related chats into a single project. This helps keep your different workflows separate and easy to manage, whether you're using ChatGPT for research, creative brainstorming, or professional tasks.

This update is now live on the ChatGPT website and the Android app, with the iOS version rolling out soon. OpenAI also increased file upload limits: free users can add 5 files per project, Plus users get 25, and higher-tier users can upload 40.

Getting Started with Projects

To start organizing, look for the Projects section in the left-hand navigation menu on either the web or mobile app.

1. Select New project to create a new workspace.
2. Give your project a name, and optionally, assign a custom color and emoji to make it easily identifiable.
3. Decide how you want the Memory feature to work. You can choose to keep the conversation history and context learned within the project separate from your other chats, or you can allow it to be shared across your entire account. This setting cannot be changed later, so choose carefully.

How to Use Projects Effectively

Once a project is created, the chat interface works just as you'd expect. However, there are a few key advantages to using a project workspace.

First, each project has its own central file repository. You can click the Add files button inside your project to upload documents, which can then be accessed by any chat within that project. This is incredibly useful for research or tasks that require referencing the same set of documents repeatedly.

One of the most powerful features is the ability to set project-specific instructions. These are different from the general custom instructions for your account. For instance, you could instruct ChatGPT to adopt a formal, academic tone for a research project and a witty, creative tone for a brainstorming project. To set this up, click the three-dot menu inside a project and choose Add instructions.

Managing Your Chats and Projects

Organization is flexible. Using the three-dot menu next to any conversation, you can:

• Move a chat from your main conversation list into a project.
• Move a chat from one project to another.
• Remove a chat from a project and return it to the main list.

The same three-dot menu at the project level lets you edit its name and appearance or delete the entire project, which will also remove all chats and files contained within it.

Disclosure: Lifehacker’s parent company, Ziff Davis, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in April, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.