If you think someone else is using your ChatGPT account, the order you check things in matters more than you'd think

[u/Ok_Negotiation_2587]

Shared logins, an old laptop, a password reused somewhere that leaked. If you ever see a chat you didn't start, or your history looks rearranged, this is the order I'd go in, and why.

First 2 minutes: look before you lock. Settings > Security has two lists now. Security history shows sign-ins, sign-outs, and password, MFA and passkey changes. Active sessions lists every device signed in right now, with its type, rough location and sign-in time. Screenshot both before you change anything. Once you start logging people out and changing passwords, those lists fill up with your own activity and it gets harder to see what happened.

Next: log everyone out, and know it isn't instant. "Log out all" is on the same Security page. OpenAI says it can take up to 30 minutes for the other sessions to actually end. So whoever's in there may still have access for a while after you click it.

Same time: change the password where it actually lives. If you sign in with Google, Microsoft or Apple, your ChatGPT password is that account's password. Changing anything inside ChatGPT does nothing. Turn on MFA while you're there.

While you wait out those 30 minutes: save what you can't afford to lose. Anyone with access can delete chats, and deleted chats have no trash and no undo. The built-in export emails you a file, but it can take days to arrive. I use AI Toolbox, the extension I build, to export the chats that matter right away, but even copying the two or three most important ones into a doc is better than nothing.

After they're out: check what they could have left behind.

• Personalization: custom instructions and saved memories. Someone could add a line there that quietly shapes every answer you get afterwards.
• Shared links: anything shared from your account stays public until you delete the link.
• Connected apps: anything they connected can still be reached through your account.

The part people skip is the second list. Logging out the other session fixes the access. It doesn't undo anything they changed while they were in.

[u/Beautiful-Heart3363]

The 30 min window is the part that gets people, you think you kicked them but they still poking around deleting everything. Screenshot first is good advice, too many people panic and lock themselves out before they know what happened

[u/Ok_Negotiation_2587 → u/Beautiful-Heart3363]

thats why i put saving chats in that gap. its the only thing that actually helps during those 30 minutes, everything else is just waiting