OpenAI has released the official ChatGPT app for Mac for all users. The app had been in beta for a while before it was made available for everyone.

The ChatGPT Mac app requires an account to use, unlike the web version of the AI chatbot, which you can use without signing up with some limitations. Speaking of which, the app does have some restrictions. Users who have a ChatGPT Plus subscription can use the premium features directly in the app.

What can ChatGPT app for Mac do?

Many people may ask, why use the ChatGPT app instead of simply accessing it via a browser? That is a fair point, but the app offers a quick way to access ChatGPT. Let's say you are writing a mail, or working on a document, you can just press Option + Space to open the chat bar and enter your queries. This is faster than opening a browser, visiting the ChatGPT website, and typing your query. The macOS app uses OpenAI's GPT4o, but you can switch to GPT3.5.

The desktop app can do more than the web version. You can use it to take screenshots, by clicking on the Pin icon that appears in the ChatGPT bar. The screenshot utility can capture the entire screen or a specific window that you select, it also saves the image to the clipboard. T

Users can upload files or photos, and ChatGPT will analyze the content, and make it ready for interactions. The AI-powered tool has OCR (optical character recognition) capabilities, so you can use it to analyze text inside an image. Apple's Preview app can do the same, but the ChatGPT app is smarter, as it can summarize the content for you. OpenAI demonstrated a scenario where the tool not only scanned the text, but even rewrote the code that was in the screenshot.

ChatGPT works across apps, so you can select text in a different app, invoke ChatGPT and use it for various tasks. e.g. to proofread text, check your code, etc. You can speak with ChatGPT to use it with voice-commands, and it transcribes your queries. This should not be confused with the Voice Mode that OpenAI promised.

ChatGPT Memory and Analytics

ChatGPT's app can remember your chats, learn from it and use the data to tailor its responses to you. This feature is called Memory, it is not enabled by default.

On the other hand, the app has a telemetry setting that is enabled by default, you can find it under the "Data Controls" tab in the Settings. It uses your data to improve the model for everyone, but you can turn it off. The ChatGPT app comes with a built-in spell check tool, but you need to enable it manually from the Settings page. I don't think it is ethical to have features like these enabled by default, but such privacy-unfriendly things are pretty common these days, as people choose convenience over privacy and security.

The ChatGPT app is not available on the Mac App Store, you will need to download it from OpenAI's website. The app is compatible with Apple Silicon Macs that are running on macOS 14 Sonoma and above, which means it does not support Intel Macs. OpenAI has confirmed that it will release ChatGPT for Windows later this year.

The ChatGPT app will likely be overshadowed when macOS 15 Sequoia is released this Fall, as it will include Apple Intelligence and the improved Siri experience that uses ChatGPT.