OpenAI wants ChatGPT and Codex to understand what you have been doing on your computer without requiring you to explain everything repeatedly. Its new Computer History feature records activity from approved Mac apps and websites, converts that activity into summaries, and creates a searchable timeline that its AI tools can reference later.
Computer History is available in the ChatGPT desktop app for macOS. It is off by default for ChatGPT Pro, Business, and Enterprise users, so OpenAI will not begin collecting activity unless someone chooses to enable it.
Business and Enterprise administrators must first grant access at the workspace level. Individual members must still opt in afterward, meaning an administrator cannot silently activate Computer History for an entire company.
The feature requires Memories and is not available through an OpenAI API key or Amazon Bedrock. OpenAI is also excluding the European Economic Area, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom for now.
ChatGPT can help you pick up where you left off
Computer History creates a timeline of recent work across the apps and websites a user permits it to monitor. Someone returning from lunch could ask what they were working on before the break, while another user might ask ChatGPT to locate a proposal viewed earlier in the day.
This could save time for people who regularly jump between browsers, documents, Slack conversations, project management tools, and development environments. Instead of reconstructing a work session manually, a user could ask ChatGPT or Codex to review the recent timeline and identify where the work stopped.
Computer History can also summarize daily activity and provide an overview of completed or unfinished tasks. That could make it useful for preparing a standup report, writing a status update, or simply figuring out what consumed most of the day.
OpenAI says the feature can use the activity timeline to identify a better source when necessary. If the answer lives inside a Google Doc, Slack conversation, or local file, Computer History can help ChatGPT determine which source the user means before accessing it through an available connection.
Computer History can suggest skills and automations
The feature does more than record a timeline. Computer History can look for repeated workflows and recommend converting them into reusable Codex skills or ChatGPT automations.
For example, it might notice that a user follows a similar routine each time a product launches. ChatGPT could then suggest creating a skill that reviews the launch plan, gathers feedback, checks the implementation, and prepares an update.
It could also suggest an automation that summarizes the user’s work at the end of each weekday. The user must review and approve these suggestions, but the underlying idea is to make automation easier by observing an existing process instead of requiring someone to describe every step.
That could be one of the more practical parts of Computer History. Many people know which repetitive tasks waste their time, but documenting those workflows well enough for an AI agent to reproduce them can become another chore.
OpenAI says it does not capture screenshots or audio
Computer History replaces OpenAI’s earlier Chronicle research preview, although the company says this is a rebuilt system rather than a renamed version. Chronicle captured screenshots, while Computer History creates a stream of interaction events.
Those events can include clicks, typing, keyboard shortcuts, app switches, and contextual information exposed through the macOS accessibility system. OpenAI says Computer History does not collect screenshots, screen recordings, microphone input, or system audio.
Private browsing activity is never included. Computer History also does not require macOS Screen Recording permission, which should help distinguish it from tools that constantly photograph everything displayed on a computer.
Still, interaction events can reveal plenty about a person’s work and personal life. A record containing apps, websites, typing, clicks, and activity summaries could remain highly sensitive even without screenshots.
Users can limit which apps and websites are included
OpenAI provides separate controls for apps and websites. Users can create exclusion lists or choose an allowlist that limits Computer History to specific approved sources.
Collection can be paused or resumed from the ChatGPT icon in the macOS menu bar. Users can also turn Computer History off completely when they no longer want it recording new activity.
The timeline lets users inspect summaries, see which apps contributed, reveal the associated memory files in Finder, and delete individual entries. History can also be cleared for the last 10 minutes, hour, day, or all time.
Deleting history removes the relevant interaction events and memories. OpenAI warns that this action cannot be reversed.
The company also advises people to turn off Computer History while communicating with others unless those participants have provided express consent. Apps containing health, financial, or personal information should probably remain excluded unless there is a clear reason to include them.
Some Computer History data is sent to OpenAI
Computer History initially saves its interaction-event stream locally on the Mac. OpenAI says temporary event files are isolated inside the ChatGPT App Group and retained for no longer than 48 hours.
However, calling the feature entirely local would be inaccurate. OpenAI periodically starts a temporary Codex session that accesses the event stream and sends the necessary data to its servers for processing.
OpenAI uses that data to generate summaries and memories, which are then stored on the Mac. The company says it does not retain the event files after processing unless required by law and does not use those temporary files to train its models.
Generated memories are plain-text Markdown files saved under the user’s Codex directory. They remain on the computer until the user deletes or clears them.
OpenAI does not encrypt these memory files. Other programs running under the same macOS account may be able to access them, so anyone using Computer History should protect the Mac account and carefully restrict which sources contribute information.
When ChatGPT or Codex uses a memory later, relevant memory contents and interaction events may be included as context. That chat content may help improve OpenAI models if the user’s ChatGPT data controls permit it.
Computer History introduces prompt injection risks
OpenAI acknowledges that Computer History increases the risk of prompt injection. A malicious website or document could contain hidden or misleading instructions designed to influence ChatGPT or Codex.
This becomes more concerning when an AI tool observes content from many unrelated apps and websites. Something encountered during ordinary browsing could potentially affect a later request if the system mistakes untrusted content for valid instructions.
OpenAI Computer History could make ChatGPT and Codex much more useful for ongoing projects. Remembering recent work, locating documents, preparing daily summaries, and converting repeated tasks into automations all sound genuinely helpful.
The privacy tradeoff is difficult to ignore, however. Anyone who enables Computer History should probably begin with a strict allowlist of work apps rather than giving it access to everything on the Mac.
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