What’s Changed: Character AI Lorebook went live on July 13, 2026 in beta for c.ai+ subscribers. It lets your characters pull from keyword-triggered world knowledge, but every published lorebook is public. You can hide an entry’s content, not the lorebook itself.
If you are trying to figure out how to use Character AI Lorebook, the first thing worth knowing is the catch nobody saw coming at launch. To use a lorebook in a chat at all, you have to publish it. Once it is published, anyone can open your profile and read it.
Lorebook is the worldbuilding feature the community has asked for through years of memory complaints. It rolled out on July 13, 2026 in beta, and for now it sits behind the c.ai+ subscription. Free users are still waiting on a date.
I will walk through what it does, how to set one up step by step, and the single setting that decides how much of your world a stranger can read. I will also cover why it opens a browser on mobile and where people are moving worldbuilding they want kept private.
The feature is genuinely useful once you understand the rules. It is also the kind of launch where the fine print matters more than the announcement video.
How to Use Character AI Lorebook and What Just Changed
Character AI Lorebook is a keyword-triggered memory tool that feeds world details into a chat only when a matching word appears.
It launched July 13, 2026 in beta for c.ai+ members, billed as one of the most requested features in the platform’s history.
A lorebook is a collection of entries about your world: side characters, locations, items, factions, events, and the rules that hold a story together. Each entry stays dormant until one of its keywords shows up in the conversation, so the detail arrives when the story needs it instead of eating space the whole time.
What is a Lorebook entry: A single note holding one piece of world detail plus the keywords that trigger it, which the character reads only when a keyword appears in chat.
The official rule of thumb from the Character AI Help Center is clean: always-relevant facts go in the character Definition, sometimes-relevant facts go in the Lorebook. I lean on that one line hard, because it stops people from cramming every detail into a space the model barely reads.
This launch is part of a fast feature run. Character AI has been shipping constantly through 2026, and TechCrunch reported users still spend over 950 minutes a month in the app even with roughly 20 million monthly users after its peak. Lorebook is the retention play aimed at the people who build worlds.
Are Character AI Lorebooks Private or Public
Published Character AI lorebooks are public. Anyone can view them on your profile’s Lorebooks tab, and there is no fully private option yet.
The only shield is a per-entry setting that hides the text of an entry but not its title or keywords.
Here is the trap. A brand-new lorebook starts as a Draft, and a Draft cannot be used in a chat at all. To even test how your character reacts to the lore, you have to hit Publish, which runs a brief review and then makes the lorebook live and visible to everyone.
That caught the community off guard fast. Within hours of launch, the loudest reaction had nothing to do with features. People wanted to know how to keep their work private.
A community moderator first reassured users, then admitted plainly: “Yes, Lorebooks are public once they’re published” and “We currently only have public Lorebooks atm.”
The one lever you do get is Entry Visibility. Set an entry to Hint Only and other users see just the title and keywords while the content stays hidden. Leave it on Full Details and everything shows.
The way I see it, Hint Only limits the damage without making anything private, because your entry titles and trigger words still leak the shape of your world.
| Lorebook state | What others can see | What stays hidden | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Draft, unpublished | Nothing, it is not shared | Everything, but you cannot use it in chat | Work in progress only |
| Published, Full Details | Title, keywords, and full content | Nothing | A public world you want others to reuse |
| Published, Hint Only | Title and keywords only | The entry content | Using lore in chat while hiding details |
Because titles and keywords stay public even on Hint Only, name your entries in a way that gives nothing away. An entry titled “Aldenmoor betrayal” tells a reader more than you think.
How Do You Create a Lorebook Step by Step
You create a Character AI lorebook from the + Create menu, add entries with keywords, link it to a character you own, then publish it.
The whole flow lives on the web or a mobile browser, and templates make the first one faster.
Before the steps, one framing note from my testing: the keywords are the entire game. Good keywords make an entry fire at the right moment, and lazy keywords either never trigger or fire constantly and clog the chat.
- Open + Create and choose Lorebook, on the website or your mobile browser.
- Start from scratch or pick a template. There are eight: Side character, Location, Item, Event, Faction or group, System or rules, Culture and Religion, and Species.
- Fill each entry’s three fields. A Title that only you and other users see, the Content that the AI reads, and the Keywords that trigger it.
- Add up to 8 keywords per entry. Use names, nicknames, and specific phrases, and skip common words that fire on every message.
- Link the lorebook to one or many characters you own. You cannot attach it to someone else’s bot.
- Publish. The lorebook runs a quick review, then a blue +Lore tag appears on the character.
If you edit a published lorebook later, changed entries highlight in yellow until you either discard them or push the update live. I like that safety net, since it stops a half-finished edit from going out in the middle of a story.
Here is the difference good keywords make.
Before: keywords like “the”, “he”, “city”, “war” fire on nearly every message and keep re-injecting the same entry until the chat forgets what just happened.
After: keywords like “Aldenmoor”, “Captain Vey”, “the northern blight”, “oathbreaker” fire only when that part of the world is in play, so the entry shows up on cue and stays out of the way otherwise.
Why Character AI Lorebook Opens a Browser on Mobile
Creating a lorebook does not work inside the Character AI mobile app yet. You can chat with lore-linked characters in the app, but tapping any lorebook option kicks you out to a browser, because the editor is web and mobile-browser only for now.
The launch post said you could create lorebooks “on web and mobile,” which set the wrong expectation. Users hit the wall right away, with one asking why “when I click on anything regarding lorebook in the app, it takes me to a browser.” A moderator later clarified the editor is browser-only and native app support is “coming soon.”
For now, my advice is to treat your phone’s browser as the real editor. Log into character.ai in Chrome or Safari on your phone, build and edit there, then go back to the app to chat.
It is clunky, but it works today without waiting on the app update. The recent Drafts feature shipped with a similar mobile gap, so this is a pattern worth expecting.
Why Your Lorebook Might Make Your Bot Forget More
A lorebook reuses your chat’s existing context budget rather than adding new memory. Overloaded or over-triggering entries compete with the live conversation and can push recent messages out, so more lore can mean more forgetting.
This is the part most launch coverage skips. The lorebook is not a bigger brain bolted onto the model. When an entry fires, its text goes into the same limited window your chat already uses, so a bloated entry or a keyword that triggers constantly quietly starves the scene you are in.
Keep entries lean, around 100 tokens each, and split big ideas into smaller entries with precise keywords. It also helps to know that Personas, Pinned Memories, and Lorebooks are separate layers that do not sync, so updating one does not update the others.
Here are the problems people are hitting in the first days and how I would fix each one.
| Symptom | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Entry never fires in chat | Keywords too obscure or misspelled | Add the exact words you type, including nicknames |
| Bot forgets the current scene | Common keywords over-triggering and filling the window | Swap generic words for specific names, trim entry length |
| Your lore shows on your profile | Entry set to Full Details on a published lorebook | Switch the entry to Hint Only, rename titles to reveal nothing |
| Cannot make a lorebook on the app | Editor is web and mobile-browser only right now | Build it in a mobile browser, then chat in the app |
| Favorite bot cannot use lore | You can only link lorebooks to characters you own | Save a copy you own, or pick a character that supports it |
Moving Your Worldbuilding From the Definition Box
Character AI reliably reads only about the first 3,200 characters of a character Definition, so years of crammed backstory is mostly dead weight.
The Lorebook is where that overflow world detail should now live.
The Definition box accepts up to 32,000 characters, but in practice the model leans on the opening 3,200 and treats anything past roughly 5,000 as background noise it may ignore or invent around. That is why so many detailed bots drift into a generic voice after a while.
My migration approach is straightforward. Audit the Definition, pull out the sometimes-relevant material like room layouts, side characters, and faction history, and rebuild each piece as a short lorebook entry with one to eight precise keywords.
Keep only the always-on identity and behavior rules in the Definition itself. The older Lorebook and PipSqueak 2 announcement hinted this was coming back in April, and the tool is finally here to do it.
What to Do If You Want Private Persistent Memory
If keeping your worldbuilding private matters more than Character AI’s library size, a companion app with private, built-in memory is the cleaner fit.
Character AI’s lorebook is public by default and locked to paid users, which is a hard limit for some people.
I want to be fair here. Character AI still has the deepest character catalog anywhere, and for plenty of people the Hint Only workaround is enough.
If your worlds are casual, the public tab may not bother you at all. This section is for the users telling the platform “my characters are private, so my lorebook for them should be too.”
For that group, Candy AI is where most people are heading, since its memory is private to your account and built in rather than published to a profile, with no per-feature paywall to clear first.
If your priority is specifically long-term memory that carries context across sessions, Nectar AI leans hard into persistent recall without asking you to expose your world to strangers.
It also helps to know the wider field. Janitor AI’s version of lorebooks, its Scripts, is far more advanced, with boolean secondary keys like AND ALL and NOT ANY plus probability and message-delay triggers. SpicyChat skips manual keywords with vector memory that resurfaces past scenes on its own.
If you want the full rundown, the best Character AI alternatives guide breaks down who each one is for, and the c.ai+ value breakdown covers whether the subscription is worth it just for Lorebook.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I use Character AI Lorebook for the first time?
Open + Create, choose Lorebook, add entries with content and up to 8 keywords each, link the lorebook to a character you own, then publish it. You need a c.ai+ subscription during the beta, and you build it on the web or a mobile browser.
Can I keep my Character AI lorebook private?
Not fully. Published lorebooks are public on your profile, and there is no private option yet. You can set individual entries to Hint Only, which hides the content but still shows the title and keywords to anyone.
Is Character AI Lorebook free?
No. During the beta it is limited to c.ai+ subscribers at $9.99 a month. The team has said it will reach free users later, but noted some features may stay exclusive to c.ai+.
Why can’t I create a lorebook in the Character AI app?
The lorebook editor is web and mobile-browser only right now. The app lets you chat with lore-linked characters, but tapping lorebook options sends you to a browser until native app support ships.
Can one lorebook be linked to multiple characters?
Yes. You can link a single lorebook to as many of your own characters as you want, which keeps a shared world consistent across a whole cast. You cannot attach it to characters other people made.
Do lorebooks give my character more memory?
No. Lorebook entries share the same context window as your chat, so they improve consistency but do not add capacity. Bloated or over-triggering entries can crowd out recent messages instead.
Quick Takeaways
- Character AI Lorebook launched July 13, 2026 in beta for c.ai+ subscribers, with free access still undated.
- Published lorebooks are public, and Hint Only hides an entry’s content but never its title or keywords.
- You must publish a lorebook to use it, since a Draft cannot run in a chat.
- Build and edit in a browser for now, the mobile app editor is not live yet.
- If private, built-in memory matters more than library size, a dedicated companion app is the cleaner path.
