I completely understand your frustration, especially after spending hours working on something important. One thing I’d check first is whether you accidentally used Temporary Chat or have Chat History turned off, because those conversations won’t appear in your normal history. Also check Settings → Data Controls → Archived Chats, make sure you’re signed into the correct account/workspace, and try logging out and back in. OpenAI also recommends checking the service status if chats suddenly disappear. For important work, I’d personally save/export the conversation periodically as a backup rather than relying on the chat history alone. If it’s genuinely missing from both your history and data export after these checks, I’d contact OpenAI Support with the approximate date/time it disappeared so they can investigate.

Thanks for sharing. I'd love to help you get started with Claude Code. If you're still looking for a Max referral pass, I hope someone here can send one your way. In the meantime, if you get access, I'd be happy to help you set up Claude Code properly, explain the best workflows, and show you how to use it effectively from day one so you can get the most value out of your trial.

Welcome to the community

Yes definitely once you get focused and learned from your past mistakes

That's a smart approach. Letting your AI assistant handle the initial intake helps keep things consistent, unbiased, and objective while saving you time for the conversations that matter most.