OpenAI introduces a new ‘Computer History’ feature for Mac’s ChatGPT app, allowing users to enable on-device activity logging for better context, with privacy controls and limited access for business users, marking a significant step in personalising AI assistance.
OpenAI has added a new “Computer History” feature to the ChatGPT desktop app for Mac, extending the product’s memory functions beyond chat threads and into on-device activity. The tool is designed to help ChatGPT recall what a user was doing across selected apps and websites, so it can answer follow-up questions with more context and less repetition. OpenAI announced the feature on X, saying: “ChatGPT can now remember your activity across the apps and websites on your computer.”
The company says the feature is meant to work like a searchable record of recent work on a Mac. A user might ask ChatGPT to recover a document they viewed earlier, summarise the day’s activity or reconstruct what they were doing before stepping away from the computer. Unlike OpenAI’s earlier Chronicle research preview, which relied on screenshots, Computer History uses activity data exposed through macOS accessibility functions, including clicks, typing, keyboard shortcuts and app switching. OpenAI says that pattern-recognition may also help the system spot repeated workflows and suggest turning them into a skill or automation.
The feature is switched off by default, which is significant for privacy and consent. Users have to enable it manually and can decide which apps and websites are allowed to contribute to the history, pause collection at any time and review or delete the record whenever they want. That fits with OpenAI’s broader push to give users more control over ChatGPT data, including tools to turn off chat history and request exports of account data. In that context, Computer History is less a passive logging system than an opt-in memory layer with user controls built in.
Access is currently limited to ChatGPT Pro, Business and Enterprise users on the Mac desktop app. Business and Enterprise administrators must enable the feature before individual users can switch it on. OpenAI also says it is not initially available in the European Economic Area, Switzerland or the UK. The launch adds to a wider set of product changes in which OpenAI has tied ChatGPT more closely to browsing, memory and personal context, including web search and Atlas, its ChatGPT-powered browser.
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