I couldn’t figure out how to delete old ChatGPT images from my Library — here’s the… is attracting attention across the tech world. Analysts, enthusiasts, and industry observers are watching closely to see how this story develops.
This update adds another signal to a fast-moving sector where product decisions, platform changes, and competition can quickly shape the market.
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Sometimes it’s the simplest things that confound you with AI. Creating an image in ChatGPT is super simple — just select Create image from the + menu and type in what you want to see. But when it comes to deleting that image from your Library, the delete option only appears for newly created images, since the new Library was added in May 2026, but not for your older images.
ChatGPT recently added file storage, and you can find your files in the new Library option in the sidebar menu. It’s easy to add or delete files you’ve uploaded and images you’ve created from here; however, it won’t work with older images created before it introduced the Library.ChatGPT still treats your older images separately and keeps them in the Images menu.
And that’s the problem, because there’s no delete option in there.
Choose Images in the sidebar menu of ChatGPT’s web interface, or the top-left ‘two horizontal lines’ menu in the mobile app, and you’ll see every single image you’ve ever created with ChatGPT in one big grid. Tap or click on an image to view it full size, and you get options to edit or share it…but no delete option.
If you’re anything like me, you’ve had several attempts at creating an image before ChatGPT finally got it right. And you don’t necessarily want to keep all the old versions hanging around in your image library. But there’s seemingly no way to delete them — or so I thought, until I found this little workaround.
To remove an old image, you first have to open the chat where the image was created and then delete the whole chat. This removes the images from your Images library, but be warned: if multiple images were created in that chat, you’ll be removing all of them.
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Now go back to Images and refresh the page in your browser, or pull down to refresh in the mobile app. Once it refreshes, you should find that all the images from that chat have been removed from your Images for good.
There’s no doubt this is a messy solution, but until OpenAI adds a proper delete option for your older images, it’s currently the only reliable way I’ve found to do it.
Now that it’s introduced the new Library and given all users the ability to remove newly created images, I suspect that OpenAI will never get around to adding a delete option for the older images. That’s a shame, but at least there is one workaround that solves the problem, as messy as it is.
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Graham is the Senior Editor for AI at TechRadar. With over 25 years of experience in both online and print journalism, Graham has worked for various market-leading tech brands including Computeractive, PC Pro, iMore, MacFormat, Mac|Life, Maximum PC, and more. He specializes in reporting on everything to do with AI and has appeared on BBC TV shows like BBC One Breakfast and on Radio 4 commenting on the latest trends in tech. Graham has an honors degree in Computer Science and spends his spare time podcasting and blogging.
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Why This Matters
This development may influence user expectations, future product strategy, and the competitive balance inside the broader technology industry.
Companies in adjacent segments often react quickly to similar moves, which is why stories like this tend to matter beyond a single announcement.
Looking Ahead
The full impact will become clearer over time, but the story already highlights how quickly the modern tech landscape can evolve.
Observers will continue tracking the next steps and how they affect products, users, and the wider market.
