ChatGPT Guide: Prompts, Tips & Advanced Techniques

GPT-6.1 Terra is the third of OpenAI's four tiers (Astra, Sol, Terra and Luna), released on October 26, 2026. Its API prices are $1 input, $0.05 cached input and $5 output per million tokens, half those of GPT-6.1 Sol and GPT-5.6 Terra, and its knowledge cutoff is June 1, 2026. In OpenAI's testing, it scored 60.0% on Agents' Last Exam, which simulates professional work, matching 6.1 Sol and 6 Astra, while 6.1 Sol and 6 Astra scored higher on terminal coding (Terminal-Bench 4.0), where Terra scored 50.3%. Using the chart values in OpenAI's announcement and the model page (checked October 28, 2026), this article lays out pricing, performance, how it works in ChatGPT and Codex, and safety, and explains how to choose between it, Sol, Astra and Claude (Opus 5.5 and Sonnet 5.5).

Claude's Max plan includes $100 in API credits a month, Ultra $200 and Team up to $500 in total, while Free and Pro get none. Gemini includes Google Cloud credits of $10 a month with Google AI Pro, $40 with Ultra 5x and $100 with Ultra 20x, and none with Plus. Since October 28, 2026, ChatGPT has included $100, $200 and $500 a month with Pro 100, 200 and 500, and per-seat credits with Business (up to $500 in total), while Go and Plus get none. Based on the three companies' official pricing pages, help articles and developer docs (checked October 27, 2026; ChatGPT checked October 30), this article compares, in the same order, where the credits can and can't be used (your Claude Code usage limits don't change), how to claim them (Gemini requires a $5 prepayment), when they expire (Claude and ChatGPT credits expire monthly, while Gemini credits are valid for 12 months and accumulate), what you can use for free without a plan (Claude's trial credit, Gemini's free tier and OpenAI's free tokens for data sharing), and whether the content you send is used for training, then sums up the deciding factors for choosing.

This guide covers the causes of Codex feeling slow or heavy and how to fix them, organized by symptom, based mainly on OpenAI's official documentation and replies from GitHub maintainers as of October 25, 2026. For slow replies, check outages and congestion, lower reasoning effort to fit the task, use a lighter model or Fast mode (Fast uses 2.5 times the usage quota), and start a new thread for each task, as recommended by OpenAI staff. For slow startup, stop unused MCP servers with enabled = false and update the CLI, while a heavy or frozen app calls for an update and restart (one Windows bug was fixed in v26.825.32147) and archiving scheduled tasks you no longer need, since they pile up worktrees; on WSL, keep files on the Linux side to speed up commands.

This guide explains how to handle the Codex desktop app error "Organization settings could not be loaded" when it blocks you from continuing. The wording suggests a network or proxy problem, but GitHub bug reports show other causes too. It covers a case fixed by a single retry, four patterns reported by users, where to find the app logs, and what to avoid, such as signing out right away or deleting folders. It also explains what to report if the problem persists and how it differs from the similar "Couldn't load workspace settings" error.

The page was visible, but Codex could not control it. We distinguish a missing connection from a stale error page and explain what actually recovered.

We placed the app and its main data on drive D and kept active runtimes on drive C. Here is what we backed up, moved, and verified.

ChatGPT moved successfully, but destination preparation caused I/O failures in Docker and Unity on the same drive. Here is what the logs showed.

This guide walks through fixing a ChatGPT generated file that won't download, in order: requesting a new link, splitting the ZIP, and getting the file from Library. It includes an example of a roughly 12 MB ZIP that was received after splitting, and explains how to check that a handoff ZIP contains the required information.

This guide covers how to handle ChatGPT's "Message delivery timed out" error, following the official help steps. It explains how to ask for a resume without losing the partial answer, how to tell this apart from Too many requests on mobile, web, and the app, and what details to give support.

A site with an address like xxx.chatgpt.site is one that a ChatGPT user built and published with a feature called ChatGPT Sites. OpenAI provides the hosting, but it does not create the content or review or approve it, and responsibility lies with whoever built the site. This article is based on OpenAI's help articles, developer guide, terms, and release notes, which I checked in the original on October 11, 2026. ChatGPT Sites was introduced as a public beta on July 9, 2026, and is available on Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Edu, but not on Free or Go. During the beta, it is included in your subscription up to each plan's limits; the limit values and pricing after the beta have not been announced. The beta is provided "as is," OpenAI can unpublish a site for any reason, and even the example site in the developer guide returned a 404 when I checked. The article covers the constraints to know before using it in production (no guarantees, no choice of where data is stored, prohibited uses, and the creator's responsibility) and the uses it suits, how to connect a custom domain and change the URL, how to set visibility and permanently delete a site, and whether your conversations are used for training.

Check a ChatGPT scheduled task in three stages: registration, run, and notification. Plan-specific reservation limits, setup steps, editing, stopping, and notification troubleshooting are explained with diagrams and tables. Also covers differences from Codex PC schedules and dot, usage allowances, and project file and shared link limits.

This guide covers OpenAI's official ChatGPT for Word add-in, including setup, sample prompts for proofreading and summaries, and free limits plus paid usage. It explains how the usage allowance is shared with Codex, how chat history and memory differ, and when to choose it over Copilot. It also covers organizational permissions, handling confidential information, and checking edits before you finish a document in Word.