# How do you create a ChatGPT account and find your way around it?

Date: 2023-05-02 · Author: Robert Scales · https://guidetoartificialintelligence.com/en/learn/create-chatgpt-account-find-way-around/

**Answer:** You create a free ChatGPT account at chat.openai.com, confirm your details, and land on a page with a message box at the bottom and a sidebar of past conversations on the left. Once you know four controls (New chat, the history sidebar, the model menu for Plus users, and the buttons to stop or redo a reply), you can use it comfortably.

ChatGPT runs in your web browser, so there is nothing to install. All you need is an email address and a few minutes. The free version is enough to learn on, and it is where most people should start before deciding whether to pay for anything.

If you already have an OpenAI account from the DALL·E image tool (labs.openai.com) or the developer Playground (beta.openai.com), you don't need a new one. OpenAI's help pages say the same login works at chat.openai.com.

## Step by step: creating your account

1. **Go to chat.openai.com** in any modern browser. Typing the address yourself is safer than following ads or unknown links.
2. **Choose "Sign up."** You can register with an email address and a password, or with one of the existing accounts the page offers.
3. **Confirm your email.** Open the message OpenAI sends and click the link.
4. **Complete the verification steps shown,** then enter your name.
5. **Read the short welcome notes** before your first message.

One point deserves a moment. OpenAI's FAQ says its AI trainers may review conversations and asks users not to share sensitive information. Treat the message box like a postcard, not a sealed letter: no passwords, health records or client secrets.

## A tour of the screen

Once you are in, the page has three areas.

**The message box** sits at the bottom. Type your request, press Enter, and the reply appears above it, written out a few words at a time.

**The sidebar** on the left lists your past conversations. OpenAI began rolling out saved history in December, with the ability to rename and delete chats. Each conversation keeps its own memory: ChatGPT remembers what you said earlier in that chat, but not what you said in a different one.

**The New chat button** at the top of the sidebar starts a fresh conversation. Use it whenever you change subjects. A clean chat stops instructions from your earlier task (say, "answer in French") from leaking into the new one.

Four more controls are worth knowing:

| Control | Where it is | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Stop generating | Below the reply while it is being written | Halts a long or off-track answer (added in January) |
| Regenerate response | Below the latest reply | Asks for a fresh version of the same answer |
| Thumbs up / down | Beside each reply | Sends feedback; OpenAI asks you to flag wrong answers this way |
| Model menu | Top of the page, for Plus subscribers | Picks which version of ChatGPT answers |

Settings, at the bottom of the sidebar, now also include a switch to turn off chat history, added on April 25. Conversations started with it off are not used to train OpenAI's models and don't appear in your sidebar.

## A first session to try

Here is a short exercise that touches every control. Start a new chat and send:

```prompt
I'm new to ChatGPT. Give me three ideas for a 20-minute weeknight dinner using chicken, rice and whatever vegetables are common in May. Keep each idea to two sentences.
```

Then follow up in the same chat with "Make the second one vegetarian." Notice that it understands "the second one" because it remembers the conversation. Next, press Regenerate response and compare the new version. Finally, open New chat and type "Make the second one vegetarian" again. Without the earlier context, it has no idea what you mean. That contrast is the single most useful thing to understand about conversations.

> **Try it:** Do the dinner exercise above, then rename the conversation in the sidebar to "Dinner ideas" so you can find it later. Give one reply a thumbs up or down and note what the feedback box asks.

## Is ChatGPT Plus worth paying for?

ChatGPT Plus costs $20 a month. OpenAI launched it on February 1, first in the United States, and opened purchases internationally on February 13. The original promise was access even when the service is busy, faster replies and early access to new features. Free access continues.

Since then, the "new features" part has grown. On March 14, Plus subscribers got GPT-4, OpenAI's newest model, which OpenAI describes as stronger at advanced reasoning, complex instructions and creative work. There is a usage cap on GPT-4 that OpenAI adjusts to demand, so you can't send it unlimited messages. Plus users choose GPT-4 or the faster default model from a dropdown at the top of the screen. On March 23, OpenAI also began opening experimental plugins, including a browsing model, to users from a waitlist.

So who should pay? If you use ChatGPT a few times a week for emails, ideas or explanations, the free version is likely enough; start there. Plus makes sense if you rely on it daily for work, keep hitting busy periods, or want GPT-4 for harder tasks such as long documents, careful reasoning or code. A practical test: use the free version for two weeks and write down each time it let you down. If most of those notes say "too slow," "not available" or "not good enough on a hard task," Plus is aimed at exactly those problems. If they say "it got a fact wrong," paying won't remove the need to check its answers.

## Sources

- ChatGPT — Release Notes: https://web.archive.org/web/20230430020421/https://help.openai.com/en/articles/6825453-chatgpt-release-notes
- ChatGPT General FAQ: https://help.openai.com/en/articles/6783457-chatgpt-general-faq
- Introducing ChatGPT Plus: https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt-plus/