OpenAI has launched Computer History, a ChatGPT feature that records clicks, keystrokes, keyboard shortcuts and app switches on macOS to build a searchable memory. The memory files are stored locally as unencrypted plain text, and the feature is not available in the EEA, Switzerland or the UK.

OpenAI has given ChatGPT a record of what you do on your Mac. Computer History logs clicks, keystrokes, keyboard shortcuts and app switches through the operating system’s accessibility framework, then turns them into a searchable memory the assistant can draw on.

It is narrower than it sounds. The feature takes no screenshots, no screen recordings, no microphone input and no system audio, and private browsing is excluded.

That restraint is a deliberate correction. Computer History replaces Chronicle, the Codex feature that captured the screen to build context, and it swaps images for input events.

One thing did not change. The memory files are plain-text Markdown held locally without encryption, so any program running under the same macOS account could read them.

Consent is layered more carefully than most launches. On Business and Enterprise workspaces an administrator has to enable it, the individual user has to agree separately, and Memories has to be switched on.

Users also get real controls. Apps and websites can be added to include or exclude lists, and recording can be paused from the menu bar.

Retention is short at the raw end. Temporary event files sit on the machine for 48 hours before deletion, and OpenAI says it processes them on its servers without keeping them afterwards unless legally required.

Training is where the line gets soft. OpenAI says the memory files are not used to train models, but that when memories surface as context in later chats, those chat contents may still become training data depending on a user’s settings.

The company’s own documentation is unusually frank about the risks. It flags heightened exposure to prompt injection, advises against using the feature with communication apps unless everyone involved has agreed, echoing a problem the industry has yet to solve around recording other people, and recommends excluding anything handling health, financial or personal data.

Europeans cannot try any of it. The feature is unavailable in the European Economic Area, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

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