OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot runs in your web browser, but the company has also launched a macOS desktop version of its artificial intelligence (AI) helper. Now, thanks to a newly released version of the ChatGPT Mac app, OpenAI has made it easier to multitask with the popular AI chatbot.
With the latest update, OpenAI has changed how ChatGPT works when you have other apps open. Previously, you could press the Option-Space keyboard shortcut to open ChatGPT’s Spotlight-like search box on your Mac. After you’d typed your request and pressed Return, ChatGPT’s main window would come to the front, even if it had previously been hidden behind a different app’s window.
Now, things work a little differently. Let’s say you’re working in a web browser and then press Option-Space to bring up ChatGPT’s search box. After entering your request and pressing Return, you’ll be presented with a small ChatGPT overlay that sits on top of your previous windows, rather than the getting main ChatGPT window.
That means there’s no need to keep switching between apps – you can just position the ChatGPT mini-window on top of or alongside everything else.
Update quirks
This change is not the only update in ChatGPT’s latest version. OpenAI says it has also brought improvements to data analysis, whereby ChatGPT-generated tables and charts now have a new expandable view that you can interact with. As well as that, you can “customize and download charts for presentations and documents,” OpenAI says, and pick specific table cells for ChatGPT to conduct further analysis on.
There are also several bug fixes and other improvements in the app, including the addition of several new keyboard shortcuts, extra customization options, performance and security improvements, and more.
It's worth noting that we encountered a strange situation when updating to the latest ChatGPT version. Downloading the app from OpenAI’s website got us version 1.2024.199, which contained the new mini-window feature. Yet updating the app to version 1.2024.212 seemingly removed the new overlay.
A second time, downloading the app from the OpenAI website didn't give us the new feature, yet updating it fixed the problem. If you’re struggling to find the feature after updating ChatGPT, it’s worth trying a few different ways of downloading and updating the app.
OpenAI hasn’t said when exactly we’ll see a Windows version of the ChatGPT desktop app, other than teasing that it’s coming later in 2024. If you’ve got a Mac and want to test out the new ChatGPT features, though, you can dive right in, provided your Mac has an M1 chip or better and is running macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later.
