When to Close “Chats”?

AI
1

We understand the need for closing tabs. Even if the computer doesn’t need unused tabs close it eventually hinders navigation.

How often do you clear old chats from Gemini, ChatGPT and other apps?

2

I’m currently using Claude code in tmux. It makes it easier to just wipe a chat out completely once it’s done. Sure it remains on disk and can be retrieved later, but it’s not visible in front of me anywhere.

3

Almost never. Unlike tabs in a browser, old chats don’t affect navigation, and once in a blue moon I’ll need something from a very old chat. So Its just easiest to let it get pushed down the list in chat history.

4

Never. Seriously I do not and have not removed old ChatGPT questions-and-responses as there are occasions when I want to refer back to them. Similarly with Messages, WhatsApp, etc I do not remove old conversations. More than once I have wanted to refer to a Messages response from a family member they posted several years ago.

5

I will close and delete a chat in Claude when I have finished with it. If there is information that I intend to keep, I have Claude either summarize or document the chat (or both) in a file. I save the file. If I need to revisit a chat I thought I was finished, I just upload the doc back into a new chat.

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6

My thought—and this is only rank speculation on my part—is that continuing a long chat will burn tokens due to the accumulated context. I’ll keep it around for that same reason until I’m sure I’m done with it and then I’ll flush it.

If I’ve got that wrong, someone please instruct me.

7

You mean continuing a chat from a long time ago? Depends on the LLM, but Claude will indeed bring the old chat into a new context window and use a lot of tokens. However if it just sits there in your history unused it uses zero tokens.

So you’re better off using new chat sessions rather than continually reusing old sessions, but you lose nothing by simply leaving old chats in your history.

8

Thanks, that’s been my understanding. I have a couple of vibe sessions where it’s helpful not to have to begin all over telling it what it’s done wrong.