Feature Request: User-Created Folders for Chat Organization
I would love to see ChatGPT allow users to create their own folders in the sidebar and move conversations into them, similar to organizing files on a computer.
Renaming individual chats is helpful, but for users who maintain many long-running conversations, research threads, experiments, courses, projects, and test results, the sidebar can still become difficult to navigate.
A folder system could allow users to create categories such as:
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Research
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Test Results
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AI Safety
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Education
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Writing
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Individual Projects
Ideally, users could:
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Create and rename folders
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Drag or move chats into folders
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Collapse folders when they are not being used
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Search or filter chats within a folder
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Create subfolders where useful
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Move conversations between folders without changing the original chat
This is different from asking ChatGPT to remember more information. It is an organizational layer for the user’s own conversation history.
For researchers, students, creators, people working across several projects, and users who benefit from strong visual organization, this could make ChatGPT much easier to use as a long-term working environment rather than simply a chronological list of conversations.
+1 to this. Projects help a bit, but they’re one flat level and don’t really work as a filing system once you have hundreds of chats.
Disclosure: I build a Chrome extension called TidyChats, because I ran into exactly this problem. Until OpenAI ships folders natively, it covers most of your list for free:
- create, rename and color folders right in the ChatGPT sidebar
- drag chats into folders, or use “Add to folder” in the chat’s ⋯ menu
- subfolders, and folders collapse when you’re not using them
- move chats between folders; the original chat in ChatGPT isn’t changed
- full-text search across all your chats, not just titles
No account needed, and the folders are stored in your browser. It’s at tidychats. com if anyone wants to try it.
I’d still much rather see this built into ChatGPT itself, so I’m voting for the request too.
Thank you for sharing this, and for supporting the feature request!
It’s interesting to see that you’ve encountered the same organizational limitations and developed a solution to address them.
I particularly like the addition of colour-coded folders and full-text search, as both could be valuable for people managing extensive research and project histories.
One area I’m especially interested in is privacy and data governance. For users working with research, sensitive information, or long-term projects, understanding how third-party tools access and manage conversation data is important.
I still believe a native folder system would be valuable because it could provide this organizational structure directly within ChatGPT, without requiring additional extensions or permissions.
I appreciate you contributing another perspective and a practical example of what is possible!
On the privacy point, a quick checklist for any folder extension: check its permissions in chrome://extensions → Details (only chatgpt.com, or all sites?), the Privacy section on its Chrome Web Store page, whether it needs an account or sync (that puts your folder data on their server), and who runs it.
I’m part of Lantern Toolworks, we built Convo Drawer, so weigh this accordingly. Its answers: site access is chatgpt.com only, folders are stored in your browser, there’s no account, and exporting a chat to Markdown saves it straight to your computer. Free for 10 folders.
It’s on the Chrome Web Store: search “Convo Drawer” (publisher Lantern Toolworks).
Agreed that native folders would avoid the question entirely.