alt Hacker NewsOpenAI – How to delete your account
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I canceled 2 months ago and they keep giving me free pro subscriptions
I stopped paying OpenAI a long time ago. I get that actually deleting your OpenAI account hurts their ‘numbers’ and thus possibly their valuation. I choose another path: I use their tokens for free, hopefully helping them go out of business a little sooner.
The irony is that until yesterday I felt more or less the same about Anthropic. Last night I paid for an Anthropic subscription I don’t need in order to both support their current cause vs. the US government and help their ‘numbers.’
PSA: Export your ChatGPT conversations before cancelling If you're thinking about cancelling (or switching to Claude/Gemini), don't lose months of conversations first.
I built Basic Memory — it imports your ChatGPT export and turns it into plain Markdown files. Every conversation becomes a file you can actually read, search, and use with whatever AI you switch to.
This is not an ad. It is free and open source. Your data belongs to you. Keep it.
Steps:
1. Settings → Data Controls → Export Data (ChatGPT emails you a zip)
2. Install Basic Memory (brew tap basicmachines-co/basic-memory && brew install basic-memory)
bm import chatgpt conversations.zip
Complete docs: http://docs.basicmemory.com
I was just about to change from OpenAI to Anthropic, however when signing up I get this message:
> Unfortunately, Claude is not available to new users right now. We're working hard to expand our availability soon.
That's unfortunate timing.
LOL I keep getting, “ Oops, an error occurred! Too many failed attempts. Try again”… my login codes are mysteriously not working when trying to delete my OpenAI/ChatGPT account.
Altman tweet: “Two of our most important safety principles are prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems. The DoW agrees with these principles, reflects them in law and policy, and we put them into our agreement.”
From that it reads like the administration quickly agreed to the terms Anthropic wanted with OpenAI instead.
I expected the comments to mention Scott Galloway. Haven't found his name here, so I am doing that now.
Context is his https://www.resistandunsubscribe.com/ campaign.
Just a heads up for people that used phone numbers to verify their account before you decide to proceed with account deletion.
> New accounts are still subject to our limit of 3 accounts per phone number. Deleted accounts also count toward this limit.
> Deleting an account does not free up another spot.
> A phone number can only ever be used up to 3 times for verification to generate the first API key for your account on platform.openai.com.
I really didn't expect OpenAI to do something as immoral as this, despite their history of stealing the world's data to create a public-facing deep-fake generation machine. I am shocked and appalled.
Here’s my take:
- when I saw Altman driving a multimillion dollar car while OpenAI was still a nonprofit, all of his scientists left to start rival firms, and the details of why they tried to fire him were legit, I dumped ChatGPT and moved to the new company - Anthropic.
- The Pro Max $200/month subscription has uncapped my workflow to where I’ve created several substantial and complex applications in compressed timeframes. (https://devarch.ai if you want to be productive)
- Anthropic has clearly evolved towards being a good corporate citizen and is staging itself to replace the market’s developer-first mentality from its past leaders (Microsoft, Google, Oracle).
- Claude Code in the last three months has finally made it possible to dump Windows and buy a loaded MacBook Pro. It’s been a week since I logged into my Surface Laptop 5.
- if Anthropic does break from its current evolutionary trajectory, I plan to build out my own at-home platform anyway. The open source models are extraordinarily effective.
Even for people who intend to use it in the future, there's a way to send a message with only a 30 day hiatus: if you really want, you can recreate the account with the same email address after 30 days, withe a clean slate. I'm between a slight rock and a hard place so cannot completely get out of OAI just yet, but I can manage 30 days without it.
Next week Anthropic will do something evil and everyone will be moving back to OpenAI.
Crazy thought but maybe we should regulate AI instead of relying on the hegemony of three companies to police themselves.
Normally I'd be quite cynical here and say few people will actually do this, but it's OpenAI and Anthropic is an arguably superior option anyway. I've only given money to Anthropic in the first place. Why have people been doing business with OpenAI? Is it better than Claude at something I'm not familiar with?
I am buying Anthrophic subscription. I know everything could change and they could also turn evil, but currently they showed willingness to be the good guy
I'm so desensitized to hostile account deletion workflows. I do heaps of them whenever I purge stale entries in my 1Password vaults. They are almost-universally absolutely awful, and I really wish we could federally enforce better practices.
OpenAI's process actually isn't too bad from what I'm seeing (unless they updated it after this hit the front page). At least they let you delete your account from the web.
Snapchat makes you wait three days after initiating a delete request before you can _actually_ delete your account, and it has to be from the same device (or, if done from the web, a browser with cookies to the site still present).
Most services make you email their privacy@ mailbox or give them a call to initiate a deletion (but not before hitting you with a retention offer, if you call in).
Some services will straight-up reject your deletion request if you don't live in Europe or California. Many medical services, for example. They also keep your data hostage.
UPDATE: Ah, this is a "here's how to protest OpenAI for succumbing to this administration's DoD". Carry on then!
Ok I'll bite: Why is this interesting? Is it because it's really difficult to delete? Or what?
> If you delete your account, we will delete your data within 30 days, except we may retain a limited set of data for longer where required or permitted by law.
It's this expression that breaks the deal for me. There's always such wide, vague exception that might be interpreted differently each time, depending on the context!
For people who still have e instincts to estimate other people by their face and gestures, Mr Altman appears glaringly a conman.
I've been trying to delete accounts at Anthropic and Cursor because they don't let you change email addresses (don't even get me started on that stupidity). But until my subscriptions that I've cancelled run out and/or the final billing is done, I can't actually delete them. I can't just forfeit the remaining time on my month's subscription, I can't force them to bill me and shut it down, and nothing I do gets me where I can ask a human to just shut it down. I also have no option to remove my billing information in case someone gains access to my account under my old email address, which is trivial to do.
I honestly think I'm going to have to cancel my credit card and get it replaced to accomplish breaking that connection with those two companies.
I’m deleting my account as well, is there a way to export all chats to Claude or just Download to later load into a local LLM?
edit: Profile > Settings > Data Control > Export
Unfortunately Claude doesn't seem to have anyway to export these chats, no SDK, no native way of doing it, and I cannot think of a way other than hacky browser automation which might even trigger a ban.
If anyone figures this out please share.
If you hammer their free tier with lots of nonsense queries that also probably doesn't help them. Definitely don't pay them
With that said, for the free tier I tend to use grok - another provider I will never pay
Anthropic does get money from me for now
Why, though? What, really, does anyone envision the next decade with government + AI is going to be like?
Obviously mass surveillance is already happening. Obviously the line between “human kills other human” is blurring for a long time already, eg remote operated drones. Missiles are already remotely controlled and navigating and detecting and following moving targets autonomously.
What’s the goal of people who think deleting their OpenAI account will make an impact?
Quite offtopics:
1. For a site visited by millions, a header element (perhaps h2, h3, h4) followed by a paragraph has such less spacing, it looks weird and hard to read.
2. There is an interesting question at the end [0]: Can you reactivate my deleted account? I was quite interested because if the could, then they never really deleted the data. The page doesn't answer that question satisfactorily at all!
[0]: https://help.openai.com/en/articles/9019931-can-you-reactiva...
Poll: are you boycotting because OpenAI is working with a military, or specifically because it is working with the US military?
I will say that I work for a company where the owner is a stubborn old man who thinks you need to pay for the services and nothing you get indirectly should be considered honest and fair.
The company downsized 4 times in 3 years... We are still trying, but people see no value because they don't understand how they will be bitten back
As the page seems to be broken at the moment: https://web.archive.org/web/20260210082000/https://help.open...
Done and done. Hope everyone can find the time and do the same.
I don't have an account with them. Would it make sense to sign up and create a script to use up the monthly free quota with random characters?
FYI for basic stuff you can always use duck.ai which also aggregates other models.
Good think I never had one.
I haven’t used chatgpt for so long now. Only Claude and Gemini. Account permanently removed.
Unfortunately, HN might represent a very tiny percentage of the decision makers who conduct business with OpenAI.
The stories I’ve been reading say that the DoW’s agreement with OpenAI contain the very same limitations as the agreement with Anthropic did. In other words, they pressured Anthropic to eliminate those restrictions, Anthropic declined, then they made a huge fuss calling them “a radical left, woke company,” put them on the supply-chain risk list, then went with OpenAI even though OpenAI isn’t changing anything either.
The whole story makes no sense to me. The DoW didn’t get what they wanted, and now Anthropic is tarred and feathered.
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/trump-will-end-government-use-of...
“OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman said the company’s deal with the Defense Department includes those same prohibitions on mass surveillance and autonomous weapons, as well as technical safeguards to make sure the models behave as they should.”
this post (4hrs ago, 1.5k points) is ranked 22, while quite a few older posts with less points are above it? hmmm
It's a sad irony where the most privileged and protected people (hn crowd) attack the people, institutions, and traditions (us govt, military) that made possible the peaceful and abundant world they take for granted.
Done.
I don’t trust OpenAI, as they don’t trust me.
Just deleted my account.
has this thread been removed from the top of hacker news?
nothing is permanent... and i wonder if they actually delete your account (of course not)
Done and deleted.
Could this be the pin?
This is what happens when a snake oil salesman like Sam Altman back door deals/sleazes his way back into a company. He is doing anything to keep Titanic from sinking. Stooping as low as catering to this garbage administration, and being used as a political pawn.
Honestly it is a good time to vote with your wallet - the difference between the models for day to day tasks is very miniscule.
From the HN Guidelines:
> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
For those who are having trouble deleting their account, just go to Settings > Account > Manage > Cancel Subscription. No need to delete the account all together. Just stop paying them.
Posting it here as a top-level comment as many people asked why boycott just openAi:
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openAI is the least trustworthy of the Big LLM providers. See S(c)am Altman's track record, especially his early comments in senate hearings where:
* he warned of engagement-optimisation strategies, like social media, being used for chatbots / LLMs.
* also, he warned that "ads would be the last resort" for LLM companies.
Both of his own warnings he casually ignored as ChatGPT / openAI has now fully converted to Facebook's tactics of "move fast and break things" - even if it is society itself. A complete turn away from the original AI for science lab it was founded as, which explains why every real (founding) ML scientist has left the company years ago.
While still being for-profit outfits, at least DeepMind and Anthrophic are headed by actual scientists - not marketing guys. At least for me, that brings me some confidence in their intentions as, as scientists we often seek knowledge, not power for power's sake.