ChatGPT conversations still lack timestamps after years of requests

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Missing timestamps & user impact

  • Per-message timestamps are still absent in ChatGPT despite long-standing requests; many consider this a “basic chat feature.”
  • Users report concrete use cases: reconstructing when symptoms began before a doctor visit, long-running projects, or workout logs where date consistency matters.
  • Some note partial/buggy time cues: personalization responses show inaccurate times; timestamps appear only in search or exports, not in the main UI.

Workarounds, exports, and security

  • Browser extensions (Chrome/Firefox) and user scripts can overlay timestamps, but commenters warn they can exfiltrate chat logs and are hard for non-technical users to vet.
  • Safer suggestions include manually installing unpacked extensions, using Tampermonkey/GreaseMonkey, or keyboard macros/AutoHotkey to paste timestamps.
  • Data export JSON contains create_time per conversation and message; people wrote scripts to inject timestamps into exported HTML and even built local, searchable history tools.

Why OpenAI might omit timestamps (speculated)

  • UX / “regular people hate numbers”: some argue product teams avoid extra numbers and controls to reduce cognitive load and keep the interface “McDonalds simple.”
    • Others strongly dispute this, noting that virtually all messaging apps show times and users handle dates, prices, and clocks just fine.
  • LLM behavior: timestamps in context could bias responses or create expectations of “time awareness” that the model can’t reliably satisfy; avoiding them may reduce confusion and token usage.
  • Engagement: hiding time may make multi‑hour sessions less salient, similar to casino design.
  • Legal/liability: explicit timestamps might strengthen evidence chains when the model behaves badly, though opponents note timestamps already exist in exports.
  • Cost/infra: some speculate infra costs are a factor, but others point out timestamps are already logged and could be a thin UI layer.
  • Copy-paste cleanliness: including timestamps in message text would clutter downstream documents, though this could be solved with non-selectable or toggleable UI elements.

Broader UX frustrations and comparisons

  • Users complain about: no context-window warnings, no visible token budget, slow UI for long chats, odd copy formatting, lack of easy print/PDF, and poor history search.
  • Branching from a message exists but arrived late; some prefer open-source UIs with explicit branch trees.
  • Claude is praised for hover-based timestamps and generally better UX; Gemini and Claude both have their own gaps.
  • A few suggest simply abandoning ChatGPT to pressure OpenAI to address long-standing UI issues.