OpenAI adds a centralized Image Library to ChatGPT

If you have ever wasted ten minutes scrolling through a dozen old ChatGPT threads just to find that one illustration you generated three weeks ago, OpenAI finally heard you.

OpenAI rolled out a dedicated "Image Library" inside ChatGPT. The feature gives users a single, centralized hub to browse, edit, and organize every image they have generated, rolling out immediately across web and mobile apps.

Best of all, it is not gated behind top-tier pricing. It is rolling out to Free, Plus, and Pro accounts alike.

A dedicated gallery in the sidebar

The new Library sits right in the left-hand sidebar on both desktop and mobile. Every visual created with the latest GPT-4o model gets saved there automatically.

Instead of hunting through old chats, you can open the gallery to see past creations neatly arranged. There is also a quick "Make Image" button right inside the view so you can jump straight into a new creation.

Interacting with images is straightforward. Long-pressing or clicking an image brings up options to Edit, Save, Share, or Copy.

The built-in editor gives you two routes: you can either type a fresh prompt to describe adjustments, or use a brush selection tool to highlight specific areas you want redone. The selection tool includes a brush-size slider along with undo and redo controls, making quick localized touch-ups much easier without leaving the app.

The weird deletion catch

There is one frustrating catch in the current rollout: you cannot just delete a single image on its own.

Because generated images remain tethered to the underlying chat session, wiping an image requires deleting the entire conversation where it was born. On the web, that means hovering over the chat title, clicking the three dots, and deleting the thread; on mobile, you have to long-press the chat title to trash it.

If you generated an image in the middle of a long brainstorming session packed with useful text, deleting that unwanted picture currently means sacrificing the whole transcript.

Why it matters

We think this update shows ChatGPT maturing from an ephemeral chatbot into an actual creative workspace. For everyday creators, social media managers, and developers, having a persistent gallery eliminates the friction of losing assets in chat histories and burning tokens to regenerate the same idea.

It also closes the gap with dedicated image generators like Midjourney, where asset management and gallery views have long been table stakes. By pairing centralized browsing with in-app inpainting brush tools, OpenAI makes quick graphic design tweaks much more practical for casual users.

That said, tying image deletion directly to chat deletion is a clunky architectural compromise. It reveals that the library is still just a frontend filter on top of chat histories rather than a true asset management system. OpenAI will need to decouple media files from conversation logs soon if it wants power users to treat ChatGPT as a serious visual library.