ChatGPT Projects: Files, Instructions, and Sharing Guide
Still pasting last week's meeting notes and your report template into every new ChatGPT chat, then explaining "here's how our team formats this" all over again? When you rebuild the context every time, the answers drift from chat to chat, and a chunk of your morning disappears before the real work even starts.
A ChatGPT project is a workspace that keeps the chats, files, and instructions for one piece of work in a single place. Every chat you start inside a project uses the same files and instructions by default, and it can build on earlier chats in that project. Based on OpenAI's help docs as of October 2026, this guide walks through creating a project, adding files, writing project instructions, and organizing and sharing chats. You'll also get three ready-to-use instruction templates and a comparison with custom GPTs and memory. At the end, you'll see how to use meeting and lecture summaries from daglo as project material.
What is a ChatGPT project? How it differs from custom GPTs and memory
A ChatGPT project is a folder for one ongoing piece of work. A custom GPT is a purpose-built chatbot that many people can use the same way, and memory is how ChatGPT remembers your preferences, like tone or job role, across your whole account.
| Project | Custom GPT | Memory | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it holds | Chats, files, and instructions for one topic | A role description, knowledge files, and capabilities | Your preferences and basic details |
| Where it applies | Chats inside that project | Chats opened with that GPT | All chats, if turned on |
| Working together | Invite teammates into the same space | Share by link or the GPT Store | Just you |
| Best for | Ongoing work like weekly reports, a course, or a client | A fixed tool many people use | Personal preferences like tone and format |
A simple rule of thumb: put the materials and rules for a job in a project, and keep facts about you in memory.
Create a project and add your files
Click New project in the left sidebar and give it a name, and the project is ready. Then upload the documents you refer to most, so you never have to attach them to a new chat again.
- Create it: Click New project in the sidebar and name it after a unit of work, such as "Weekly report" or "Intro to Economics."
- Pick a memory mode: When you create the project, its settings let you choose default memory or project-only memory. Choose project-only if you don't want other chats mixing in.
- Add files: On the project page, add the documents you reuse, such as your report template, recent meeting summaries, or lecture notes.
- Move existing chats in: Drag a chat from the sidebar into the project, or move it from the chat's menu.
The number and size of files you can add depend on your plan, so check OpenAI's help center for the current figures before uploading a large batch.
How to write project instructions, with three examples
Project instructions are the ground rules for every chat in that project. They take priority over the custom instructions on your account, so this is the right place for the format and tone of each job.
Instructions work best in this order: role, then source material, then output format, then what to avoid. Copy one of the examples below into a project's instructions and adjust it to your team.
- Weekly report: "You write the marketing team's weekly report. Follow the section order in the uploaded 'Weekly report template' file exactly. Report results as numbers with the change from last week, and list no more than three next steps, each with an owner. Never guess a number."
- Customer support: "You draft replies to customer questions. Use only the 'FAQ' and 'Refund policy' files as your source. Acknowledge the customer's frustration in the first sentence, and give the fix as a numbered list. Never promise anything the policy doesn't cover."
- Class notes: "You are a teaching assistant who helps review a college course. From the uploaded lecture summaries, list five key concepts, three likely exam questions, and the points students most often confuse. Label anything not in the lecture material as 'Extra explanation.'"
Organize and share chats with your team
Projects pay off most when you group related chats by topic and work with teammates from the same files and instructions. In a shared project, everyone gets answers grounded in the same material.
- Name your chats: Titles like "Oct 28 weekly report draft" make chats easy to find inside the project later.
- Share it: Use the share button on the project page to invite teammates. A shared project switches to project-only memory, so nobody's personal memories or unrelated chats get mixed in.
- Keep files current: When a template changes, replace the file with the new version so the whole team works from the latest one.
Use daglo transcript summaries as project material
A project's answers are only as good as the material you give it. Transcribe and summarize your meetings or lectures with daglo, upload those summaries to the project, and ChatGPT will write reports and study notes based on what was actually said.
- Record a meeting or lecture in daglo, or upload a recording. daglo transcribes it, shows who's talking, and writes a summary.
- If you want every summary in the same format, save it in daglo's My Templates, for example "Decisions, action items, next meeting." daglo remembers the prompt and summarizes every recording in that format as soon as it ends.
- Save the summary as a document, upload it to your "Weekly report" or "Class notes" project, and ask for a draft using the instructions above.
When you want to ask about the transcript itself, use daglo's Board Chat. Ask something like "Which decisions got pushed back in this meeting?" and check the answer right against the original conversation.
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