OpenAI added an Apple Messages plugin to the ChatGPT desktop app for Mac on August 20. It can read and search the iMessage, SMS and RCS conversations stored in the Messages app, draft replies, and send them. It runs only on Apple silicon Macs, and Intel machines are excluded. Before anything goes out, ChatGPT asks you to approve both the text and the recipients.

Handing the Messages app over as context

Until now, discussing a thread with ChatGPT meant copying the relevant part and pasting it into a chat. This plugin removes that step. ChatGPT reads the conversation history stored locally on the Mac and lets you search it by keyword.

The capabilities fall into three groups: finding old conversations, catching up on threads that piled up, and preparing and sending replies. Digging out the name of a restaurant someone mentioned last month is the kind of task it fits. Because SMS and RCS are covered alongside iMessage, threads with Android contacts fall inside the same scope.

Sending does not happen through some separate channel. ChatGPT hands the message to the Mac's Messages app, so send history and read receipts behave as they always have, and no parallel thread appears on the ChatGPT side.

Only the Apple silicon desktop build

The boundaries here are drawn sharply. The plugin ships only in the Apple silicon (arm64) build of the desktop app, so Intel Macs cannot use it. It does nothing in the web version, the mobile apps, the Codex CLI in a terminal, or the editor extension.

The places you can call it from are limited too. Rather than ordinary chat, it lives in Codex and ChatGPT Work, the task-executing surfaces OpenAI has been building out this year. There is no paywall by plan, so anyone with a qualifying Mac can try it.

Because it touches local data, macOS will ask for the relevant permissions the first time. That prompt is where you decide how much to hand over.

An approval step against misfires

Sending messages automatically sits among the harder AI tasks to undo. A wrong recipient means the text has already arrived, and a reply pitched at the wrong tone cannot be pulled back.

So OpenAI made confirmation the default. You see the text ChatGPT wrote and the contacts it picked, and nothing is sent until you approve. Drafting runs automatically; a human stops it only at the moment it would leave the machine.

The reverse direction is not part of this release. You cannot text the Messages app from your phone to drive ChatGPT remotely. The Mac app remains the subject, and Messages is not being turned into a remote control.

What it means to hand personal threads to an AI

The trade is not a small one. The Messages archive holds ordinary exchanges with family and friends alongside two-factor codes, delivery notices and bank alerts. Making it searchable means all of that becomes searchable.

If you plan to use it for work, check before enabling it: how much ChatGPT is allowed to read, whether permissions can be revoked later, and whether the approval step can be turned off. On a company Mac, it is worth confirming that none of this collides with internal policy first.

Other changes shipped the same day

The August 20 update carried more than the Messages plugin.

For ChatGPT Sites, site owners can now change the URL of a published site without redeploying it. The old address forwards to the new one, carrying routes and query parameters along. Custom domains are handled separately and stay as they are.

Computer History in the macOS app reached the European Economic Area, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. It is for Pro, Business and Enterprise users, off by default, and requires the memory feature to enable. Those regions had been excluded before, so one geographic restriction has now lifted.

Codex chats can be shared as read-only snapshots. For personal accounts, anyone with the link can open the static record (workspace-account links are limited to members of that workspace), which excludes tool calls and shell input and output. Known secret patterns are redacted, but paths, diffs and images may survive, so OpenAI advises reviewing a snapshot yourself before sharing it.

Finally, pinned chats now sync between the desktop app and iOS when both use the same account. Android is not included in this release.

Summary

The Apple Messages plugin in ChatGPT for Mac reads and searches iMessage, SMS and RCS conversations and handles both drafting and sending replies. It runs only in the desktop app on Apple silicon Macs and is called from Codex and ChatGPT Work. An approval step for the text and the recipients guards against misfires. Still, what you are exposing is your personal correspondence, which makes checking the scope of those permissions a necessary step before turning it on.

Reference: https://learn.chatgpt.com/docs/changelog