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Question

My ChatGPT chat got so long it's slow and forgets the beginning

Solved · 1507 views · asked by bakery_bo · edited
chatgptcontext-windowprompting

I've built my whole order form in one ChatGPT conversation over 3 weeks. Now the page takes ages to load, and it forgets things we decided at the start (like the field names for the cake orders). Starting over feels like losing everything.

What I’ve tried

Scrolled up and pasted the old decisions back in. Works for one or two answers.

Comment
How long is the chat roughly? Hundreds of messages? wes_codes · edited
Probably 300+ :( bakery_bo · edited

3 answers

Marked as helpful by the asker
wes_codes · edited

Starting over is the fix, but take the knowledge with you:

  1. In the old chat ask: "Summarize everything we decided for this project: field names, structure, rules, open problems. As a document I can paste into a new chat."
  2. Check that summary yourself, fix mistakes.
  3. New chat, paste the summary at the start (or put it in a Project's instructions so every new chat gets it).

Models only "see" a limited window of text. In a 3 week chat the beginning falls off or gets little attention. That's why it forgot the field names.

Comment
Did this, new chat is fast and it knows the field names. The summary was 2 pages, much shorter than I expected. bakery_bo · edited
This helped me too, same situation with my Lovable prompts. gabriel_ss · edited
mira_dev · edited

Keep that summary file with your code too, not only in ChatGPT. Next time you switch tools, it comes with you.

Comment
Good idea, saved it as a doc too. bakery_bo · edited
rafa_dev · edited

Also, once the project is this size, consider moving the code into a real editor with AI (Cursor, Claude Code). It reads your files directly, so you don't have to keep the whole app in a chat.

Comment

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