ChatGPT Computer History Explained: Is ChatGPT Watching What You Do on Your Mac?

If you have seen a headline saying ChatGPT can now see what you do on your computer, here is the short answer for almost everyone reading this: it cannot, and it will not, unless you go and switch it on yourself on a plan you probably do not have. OpenAI added a feature called Computer History to the ChatGPT app for macOS in its ChatGPT release notes entry dated August 13, 2026, and the entry is unusually specific about who gets it and what it does not touch.

The one-line version: it is an opt-in memory of what you have been doing in other Mac apps and on websites, so you do not have to re-explain your work to ChatGPT every time. It is off by default, limited to the Pro, Business and Enterprise plans, and since August 20, 2026 it is offered in Europe, the UK and Switzerland too. OpenAI has since published a full Computer History documentation page, which is the source for the plan, storage and retention detail below.

Key Takeaways

• It is off by default. OpenAI's wording is "Computer History is off by default." Nothing starts logging because you updated the app.
• Most people cannot get it at all. OpenAI lists it as "available to Pro, Business, and Enterprise users." Free, Go and Plus are not named, so if you are on the $20 tier or below, this is not a feature you have.
• It is not a screen recorder. OpenAI: it "records interaction events -- not screenshots, screen recordings, microphone input, or system audio."
• Private browsing is excluded. OpenAI says so directly: "private browsing is not included."
• OpenAI tells you to switch it off when you are messaging people. Verbatim: "Turn it off during communications with other people unless you have their prior express consent." Typing in Slack or email can become a summary on your Mac.
• Europe, the UK and Switzerland got it on August 20, 2026. OpenAI: it "is now available in the EEA, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom for Pro users." It was excluded at launch a week earlier.
• It requires Memories everywhere. OpenAI's documentation states it flatly: "Computer History also requires Memories." Not a European condition, as the August 20 release note made it look.
• You choose the scope, and you can undo it. OpenAI says users "can pause Computer History, choose included apps and sites, and inspect or delete timeline items."
• At work, your admin decides first. "Business and Enterprise admins must grant access before members can opt in."
• It is a Mac-app feature, and it is "not available with an API key or Amazon Bedrock."
• The raw activity log is deleted after 48 hours. The summaries it writes are not: they are plain-text Markdown files that stay under ~/.codex/memories/extensions/skysight/ until you delete them.
• Those files are not encrypted. OpenAI's own warning: they "can contain sensitive information. They are not encrypted by Computer History, and other programs running as your macOS user may be able to access them."
• It does not ask for Screen Recording permission, which is the clearest confirmation that it is not watching your screen.
• OpenAI names a new risk: Computer History "increases the risk of prompt injection from content in apps and websites."

What Is Computer History?

It is an optional memory of your recent computer activity that ChatGPT can refer back to. OpenAI describes it as a feature "that lets ChatGPT and Codex reference selected activity from apps and websites, helping users continue work without re-explaining every detail." The problem it is aimed at is a real one: you spend twenty minutes in a spreadsheet and a support portal, then open ChatGPT and have to describe all of it from scratch before you can ask a useful question.

The word doing the work is selected. OpenAI says you choose which apps and sites are included rather than handing over everything, which makes this closer to "let ChatGPT see my work tools" than "let ChatGPT see my computer."

What It Records, and What It Does Not

OpenAI drew this line in a single sentence, and the sentence is the most useful thing in the entry. It records interaction events. It does not record the four things people actually worry about.

OpenAI now defines "interaction events", and the definition is broader than the phrase sounds. Its documentation, read October 1, 2026: "Events can include clicks, typing, keyboard shortcuts, app switches, and context that macOS exposes through its accessibility system." Typing is in that list. What is still unambiguous is the excluded list: no pictures of your screen, no video of your screen, no audio from your microphone or your speakers.

OpenAI Tells You To Turn It Off When You Are Talking To People

This is the instruction most likely to matter to someone else, and it is easy to miss. OpenAI's documentation, verbatim: "Computer History can include interaction events from communication apps and websites. Turn it off during communications with other people unless you have their prior express consent. Consider pausing it or excluding apps that contain sensitive health, financial, or personal information."

In plain terms: if you have this on while typing in Slack, Messages or email, your side of those conversations can become summaries on your Mac, and OpenAI is telling you to ask the other person first. The practical move is to put your messaging apps on the exclusion list once, rather than remembering to pause it.

Do You Get It, and on Which Plan?

Probably not, and that is the headline for most readers of this site. OpenAI names three plans, and the two everyday consumer tiers are not among them.

That table does not change by region. OpenAI's documentation lists the same three plans and then says the feature "is available in supported regions, including the European Economic Area (EEA), Switzerland, and the United Kingdom," with no European plan carve-out. The August 20 release note named Pro only, which read for two weeks like a narrower European rule; the documentation does not repeat it.

Three further gates sit on top of the plan. The first is the device: OpenAI describes Computer History as a feature of the ChatGPT app for macOS, and says it is "not available with an API key or Amazon Bedrock." The second is Memories, which has to be on. The third is that access is never automatic: "Granting workspace access only lets a member choose to turn on Computer History. It does not turn on the feature for anyone. Each person must opt in individually, including ChatGPT Pro users."

Can You Get It in the UK or the EU?

Yes, as of August 20, 2026. OpenAI's release notes entry that day says Computer History "is now available in the EEA, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom for Pro users in the ChatGPT desktop app on macOS. It is off by default and requires Memories."

That reverses the position of a week earlier. The August 13 launch entry said flatly that Computer History "is not currently available in the EEA, UK or Switzerland" -- a wide exclusion, since the European Economic Area covers all 27 EU countries plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, and the UK and Switzerland take in the rest of western Europe. Seven days later that gate came off.

So if you are in Britain, Ireland, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, the Nordics or Switzerland, this is now a decision you can make, on three conditions: you are on Pro, Business or Enterprise, you are using the Mac app, and you have Memories turned on. The Memories condition is not a European rule, as the August 20 note made it look: OpenAI's documentation applies it everywhere. If the option does not appear for you, Memories is the first thing to check, and OpenAI's own troubleshooting step one says the same.

How to Turn It Off, Pause It, or Delete What It Kept

You do not need to turn it off, because it does not turn itself on. That is the single most useful fact here and it is worth repeating: OpenAI says Computer History "is off by default." If you never opted in, there is nothing to undo.

If you did opt in, OpenAI says you get three controls: you can pause Computer History, choose which apps and sites are included, and inspect or delete timeline items. That last one matters most, because it means the history it built is reviewable and reversible rather than a black box.

The controls live in three places, per OpenAI's documentation. You turn it on at Settings > Integrations > Computer history. You pick sources at Settings > Computer history > Permissions, where you can either exclude named apps and websites or allow only the ones you list. You review and delete at Settings > Computer history > History, which can clear the last 10 minutes, the last hour, the last day, or everything. The ChatGPT icon in the macOS menu bar pauses collection without opening Settings. OpenAI says clearing history "deletes the relevant interaction events and any memories created from them" and "cannot be undone."

What It Leaves on Your Mac

Two kinds of file, with two different lifespans, and only one of them expires on its own. This is the part of Computer History that the original announcement did not cover at all, and it is the part worth reading before you enable it.

OpenAI attaches an explicit warning to the second row: those files "can contain sensitive information. They are not encrypted by Computer History, and other programs running as your macOS user may be able to access them." That is not a reason to avoid the feature, but it does mean the security of your Mac login is the security of your activity history.

On what leaves your machine: OpenAI says it "processes temporary event files on its servers to generate memories, which are then stored locally on your Mac," and that it "does not retain those event files after processing unless required by law and does not use them for training." Once a memory is used in a chat, though, that chat follows your ordinary ChatGPT data controls.

OpenAI also flags a risk it does not flag for ordinary chat: Computer History "increases the risk of prompt injection from content in apps and websites. For example, if you visit a website containing malicious instructions, ChatGPT or Codex might follow those instructions." If you enable it, that is an argument for keeping the allowed-sites list short.

At work the sequence is different. On Business and Enterprise, "admins must grant access before members can opt in," so there are two switches between you and any logging: your IT administrator's, then yours.

Should You Care?

For most people, no, and you can stop here. If you are on ChatGPT Free, Go or Plus, or you do not use a Mac, Computer History is not something you have, and no headline about ChatGPT watching your computer describes your app.

Ignore it entirely if you are on a consumer plan below Pro. Nothing changed for you on August 13, and nothing changed for you on August 20 either.

Read the controls before you enable it if you are a Pro subscriber on a Mac who works across several apps and is tired of re-explaining context. The trade is real and so is the benefit, but decide which apps and sites go in the list before you switch it on rather than after.

Check it if you are a Pro subscriber in Europe, the UK or Switzerland. The feature was not offered to you before August 20, 2026 and now it is, which means it is a choice you have not made yet rather than one that was made for you.

Ask your IT team if you are on Business or Enterprise. Your admin controls whether the option even appears, and that is a workplace policy question rather than a personal one.

The wider pattern is worth noticing, and it is the same one behind Google's and Apple's recent AI features: assistants are moving from "tell me what you need" to "let me see what you are doing." The ChatGPT app changes of July 2026 started that shift with memory and connectors, and this extends it off the web page and onto the desktop. If you would rather keep AI features narrow across the products you already use, our guides on turning off Gmail's AI features and on what an AI agent actually is cover the same ground for Google's side of it.

The bottom line: Computer History is real, it is opt-in, and it is Pro-and-above on the Mac app only. Since August 20, 2026 it is available in Europe, the UK and Switzerland too, and Memories has to be on wherever you are. It logs interaction events, not screenshots, microphone input or system audio, and it skips private browsing. It deletes the raw log after 48 hours but leaves unencrypted summaries on your Mac until you clear them. If you are on Free, Go or Plus, the correct amount of attention to pay it is none.

Sources: OpenAI's Computer History documentation, read on September 9, 2026, which is now the fullest published account of the plans, permissions, storage and retention; and OpenAI's ChatGPT release notes, the entry dated August 13, 2026 ("Computer History for macOS") and the entry dated August 20, 2026 ("Use Computer History in more regions"). Where the two disagree, this page follows the documentation and says so. One detail is on this page from the release notes only: the exclusion of "screen recordings," which the documentation does not repeat.

Corrections and Updates

October 1, 2026: this page said OpenAI "does not define [interaction events] further." It does now. OpenAI's documentation reads "Events can include clicks, typing, keyboard shortcuts, app switches, and context that macOS exposes through its accessibility system," and the same page carries a consent instruction this page had never covered: "Turn it off during communications with other people unless you have their prior express consent." Both are now in the body and the Key Takeaways.

September 9, 2026: two claims about Europe were wrong, and OpenAI has published the documentation this page said did not exist. This page said the Memories requirement was "specific to this announcement" and that OpenAI "attaches no such requirement to Computer History anywhere else." That was wrong: OpenAI's Computer History documentation states "Computer History also requires Memories" with no regional qualifier. This page also said Pro was "the only plan OpenAI has confirmed for Europe, the UK and Switzerland"; the documentation lists Pro, Business and Enterprise and says the feature "is available in supported regions, including the European Economic Area (EEA), Switzerland, and the United Kingdom," with no plan carve-out by region. Both statements have been rewritten, and the closing line promising to update "if a dedicated article appears" has been replaced, because one has.

August 21, 2026: Europe, the UK and Switzerland are no longer excluded. OpenAI's release notes entry of August 20, 2026 says Computer History "is now available in the EEA, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom for Pro users in the ChatGPT desktop app on macOS. It is off by default and requires Memories." That reversed the exclusion this page was built around, so every statement of it was rewritten. Two details were flagged at the time and both have since been superseded by OpenAI's documentation, as recorded in the September 9 entry above.