Overview
- OpenAI rolled out Computer History on Monday, making the opt‑in feature available to ChatGPT Pro, Business, and Enterprise macOS users with enterprise admins required to enable it first.
- Computer History captures interaction events exposed by macOS accessibility APIs — clicks, keystrokes, app switches and other inputs — and does not take screenshots or record audio.
- OpenAI processes raw event logs on its servers, retains those raw files for up to 48 hours, and writes resulting memory summaries as plain‑text Markdown files to a local directory on the Mac.
- OpenAI offers user controls such as per‑app and site exclusions, a menu‑bar pause, and options to clear recent or all history, but it warns local memory files are not encrypted and can be read by other programs running as the same macOS user.
- Privacy and security critics have flagged prompt‑injection and third‑party access risks, questioned enterprise governance and data‑residency implications, and compared the rollout to earlier controversies like Microsoft’s Windows Recall while regulators in the EEA, UK, and Switzerland have not yet received access.