OpenAI has added a new Computer History feature to the ChatGPT desktop app on macOS. Once you opt in, it records your activity across the apps and websites you choose and turns it into memories and a timeline that ChatGPT and Codex can use in future conversations. OpenAI announced the feature on August 13, and it replaces Chronicle, the screenshot-based research preview the company tested earlier this year.
The idea is simple: if ChatGPT knows what you were working on, you don’t have to explain it every time. OpenAI says the assistant can pick up tasks where you left off, understand how you work, and suggest skills or automations based on your habits.
No screenshots this time
Chronicle worked by capturing screenshots of your screen, which drew obvious comparisons to Microsoft’s Recall. Computer History drops that approach entirely. According to OpenAI’s Computer History documentation, it records interaction events through macOS accessibility features instead, things like clicks, typing, keyboard shortcuts, and app switching.
OpenAI is clear about what stays out: no screenshots, no screen recordings, no microphone input, no system audio, and nothing from private browsing windows.
Here’s how the data flows. Interaction events sit on your Mac for up to 48 hours. OpenAI processes those temporary event files on its servers to generate memories, then deletes them unless it’s legally required to keep them. The finished memories are stored as plain-text files on your Mac until you delete them, and none of it is used to train OpenAI’s models.
You stay in control, mostly
Computer History is off by default, and turning it on takes a deliberate trip to Settings > Integrations in the Mac app. From there, you can pause collection anytime, exclude specific apps and websites, inspect every memory file, delete individual items, or wipe the whole history. A menu bar indicator shows what’s being captured.
There’s one warning worth taking seriously: OpenAI itself says the feature increases the risk of prompt injection from content in the apps and websites you visit. The company recommends pausing collection when you’re handling confidential material. That’s an unusual caveat for a feature built to watch everything you do. If you’d rather keep AI off your activity entirely, you can still run an open-source ChatGPT model offline on your Mac, though you give up features like this.
Who gets it
Computer History is available now for ChatGPT Pro, Business, and Enterprise users. Business and Enterprise admins have to enable it for their workspace first, and even then, each person must opt in individually. It doesn’t work if you sign in with an API key or through Amazon Bedrock.
Users in the EEA, Switzerland, and the UK are excluded at launch, with access expected in the coming weeks.
The feature is another sign of how much OpenAI wants the ChatGPT app on Mac to be more than a chat window. Between Codex landing in the desktop app in July and earlier additions like Record Mode and cloud drive access, the app is steadily turning into an assistant that works across your whole Mac. Whether you want it remembering your whole workday is a question only you can answer, but at least this time, the answer starts with “off.”
