Perplexity memory: what it remembers and how to extend it

Updated 30 October 2026. The Perplexity features described here come from its official help centre, read on 30 October 2026. Perplexity renames menus often: trust the labels on your account.

Yes, Perplexity has a memory. It lives in Settings → Memory and rests on two independent toggles: “Use search history”, so Perplexity can draw on your past searches, and “Notes”, so it keeps small details from your sessions (your preferences, for instance) and uses them in later answers. You can see and delete what it kept, and incognito mode is never remembered.

What Perplexity's memory keeps

• Your past searches, if “Use search history” is on: Perplexity can refer to them in a new answer.
• Notes about you, if “Notes” is on: small details from your sessions, such as a preference you stated, reused to personalise answers.
• Brain, on the Max plan: a Research Preview feature that builds structured memories about your projects, people and files, in Perplexity Computer.

According to Perplexity's plan guide, memory is on the free plan too: as you ask questions, Perplexity stores key memories that you manage in Settings. Source: the help centre's Memory article.

See, turn off or clear the memory

1. Open Settings → Memory.
2. To stop the memory, turn off “Use search history”, “Notes”, or both. Perplexity then stops referring to them in later answers.
3. To clear it, open Manage memories: you can search, filter and delete each memory (trash icon), or clear everything at once. Turning memory off does not clear what is already stored: you have to use this screen.
4. For a single search, use incognito: memory and past searches are always off there, and what you ask is never kept or used for memory.

What Perplexity's memory doesn't do

• It doesn't leave Perplexity. Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor can't reach it: each AI keeps its own memory, tied to its product.
• You don't pick each memory. You can delete afterwards, but Perplexity decides what it notes.
• It isn't organised by project, except with Brain on the Max plan, in preview.

If Perplexity is the only AI you use, its built-in memory is probably enough. The need for something else shows up when you also work with Claude or ChatGPT, and each one starts from scratch. Same story for Claude's memory and ChatGPT's.

Give Perplexity a persistent memory through MCP

Perplexity accepts custom remote connectors: MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers you add by URL, on the Pro, Max and Enterprise plans. A memory like Pryzm Memory plugs in there. It keeps what you tell it, files it by project, finds it by meaning rather than exact words, and when a decision changes, keeps the one in force. And because it is an MCP server, Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor connected to the same account find the same memories.

1. Open Plugins in the sidebar (or Customize → Connectors if Plugins doesn't show on your account yet).
2. Choose Add custom → Add MCP connector, then Remote.
3. Name it Pryzm and paste the MCP server URL: https://pryzm-memory.com/mcp.
4. Under Advanced, set authentication to OAuth (OAuth 2.0). Pryzm supports automatic client registration: no Client ID or secret to enter.
5. Tick the acknowledgement box, then Add.
6. On the Plugins page, select the Pryzm card to start signing in, and use your Pryzm username (not your email).

In the older settings layout, the same path reads Account settings → Connectors → “+ Custom connector” → Remote. Our connect guide shows the same steps as an animated walkthrough. Source: Perplexity's article on custom remote connectors.

Make Perplexity actually use it

An added connector isn't always called. Two settings help: paste the “main memory” instructions from the connect page into Perplexity's custom instructions, and, if you want a single source of truth, turn off “Notes” in Settings → Memory. To check it works, run the 2-minute test: tell one AI something, find it in another.

Pryzm Memory's free plan holds 100 memories in one project; the Solo plan is €9.99 a month. The servers are at Hetzner in Falkenstein, Germany.