How to make AI remember your story
Updated
An AI character only remembers what fits in its context window: the card plus the most recent messages. To keep older events alive, write the important facts into a short memory note and keep it updated. UnsavedAI does this with Story memory, a bullet list that updates itself every few messages and that you can edit, alongside a context of about 61,000 tokens.
Try it now, free, no account neededStart a story with Sophie LaneYour old best friend. Eight years of silence.Why characters forget
Models do not store your story between replies. Each reply is written from scratch by reading the character's card, any memory notes and as many recent messages as fit in the context window. When the story outgrows that window, the oldest messages fall away. The character has not "lost" them carelessly; it simply cannot see them anymore.
In the chat, the line under the message box shows roughly how many recent messages the character can see right now, so you know when early scenes are about to leave the frame.
Story memory: what to keep in it
When you are signed in, the ⋯ menu has Story memory. It refreshes from the story every few of your messages, and you can edit it or tap Update from the story at any time. It holds up to about a dozen short bullets, most important first, so treat it like a pinned note, not a diary.
A template that works for most stories:
- Who I am to them: Former best friend, back in town after eight years.
- How they feel now: Wary, still hurt, softening; won't admit she missed me.
- Key events: The fight at the end of the pier; she showed up when the freezers failed.
- Promises: I said I'd stay through August.
- Secrets: She kept my favourite flavour on the menu; I know, she doesn't know I know.
- Names and places: Mrs. Kowalski (town gossip), the sea wall, Lane's Scoops.
- Open threads: What she wrote in the letter she never sent.
That example fits a story with Sophie Lane. Edit the wording freely: the updater keeps your phrasing when it refreshes.
What not to put in memory
Skip anything already in the character's card (their looks, their job) and anything that happened in the last few messages, since both are already in view. Memory is for the things that would otherwise vanish: the name of the informant from chapter one, the oath sworn in the chapel, the reason you are not speaking to each other.
Remind in the story, too
A callback inside your own message is the most reliable reminder of all, because it puts the fact right next to the reply. *I set the brass token on the bar, the same one we found nailed to your cellar door.* tells the character exactly what to remember without breaking the scene. Used now and then, these callbacks also make the story feel connected.
More room to remember
Shorter messages mean more of them fit at once, so very long replies push old scenes out faster. Priority on UnsavedAI adds the larger Gemma 4 31B, and the chat shows how much further back it can see on your plan. If you are coming back to a story after a break, or it has grown past what any window can hold, continuing a long roleplay covers recaps and fresh chapters. API users can read the context guide.
Questions people ask
Does Story memory work without an account?
Story memory is for signed-in stories. It is kept with the story: on your account if the story is saved, or in this browser if it is Unsaved.
Why did the character contradict something from earlier?
That message has probably left the context window. Add the fact to Story memory, or mention it in your next message, and use Another version.
Is a lorebook the same thing?
Not quite. A lorebook holds world facts that switch on when keywords appear; story memory is a running summary of this particular story.
