Today’s the Day OpenAI Fucked Up the ChatGPT Mac App

Zac Hall, writing at 9to5Mac about OpenAI’s sprawling product announcements today:

To summarize today’s desktop app changes:

  • The existing ChatGPT app is now ChatGPT Classic.

  • Codex is now the new ChatGPT desktop app. It still looks like Codex and includes the Codex icon as an option, but it’s now called ChatGPT.

  • ChatGPT for desktop includes ChatGPT Work and ChatGPT Codex, which share plug-ins. ChatGPT Codex mode shows more technical details that ChatGPT Work abstracts away from the user.

  • It’s possible to have ChatGPT Classic, ChatGPT, and Codex installed, but the way forward seems to be just running the new ChatGPT desktop app. Codex users can still use the Codex app icon, but the app will be called ChatGPT.

Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.

The ChatGPT Classic app looks more native Mac-like, so that might be an issue for users.

The longstanding native ChatGPT Mac app — the one apparently now called ChatGPT Classic, is a 159 MB bundle. The new ChatGPT superapp — which in addition to combining the simple chatbot, ChatGPT Work, and Codex, also includes the remnants of the now-discontinued Atlas standalone web browser — is a svelte 1.5 GB Electron bundle, which doesn’t sound super to me at all.

★ Thursday, 9 July 2026