ChatGPT can now read and send your iMessages on Mac
ChatGPT can now read, draft, and send iMessages and SMS on a Mac — without any official partnership with Apple. OpenAI released the Apple Messages plugin on August 20, 2026, for users on ChatGPT Work and Codex plans. The timing is awkward: Apple sued OpenAI for trade secrets just weeks earlier, in July 2026.
How it works
The plugin uses AppleScript and macOS Accessibility tools to control the Messages app directly on your machine. OpenAI says processing happens locally — the AI doesn't build a permanent index of your messages. In practice, a user can ask ChatGPT to find a missed message from yesterday, and the bot will surface it and draft a reply ready to send.
Getting it running requires several permission steps. You have to grant ChatGPT Full Disk Access in macOS System Settings, plus access to contacts and automation tools. OpenAI gates each outgoing message behind a confirmation prompt by default, and warns users not to enable persistent auto-send approval, per Bloomberg.
The feature only works on Apple silicon Macs — the M-series chips introduced from late 2020 onward. Intel-based Macs are excluded entirely.
The privacy catch
End-to-end encryption protects iMessages in transit and on device, but it doesn't protect them from software you've authorized to read them. Once you grant ChatGPT the required permissions, the AI has access to your full message history, as The Next Web notes. Your contacts who sent those messages never agreed to have an AI analyze what they wrote.
OpenAI's claim that messages aren't indexed is narrowly worded — it doesn't clarify whether content is temporarily cached or processed server-side after the plugin runs.
There's also a durability question. Apple shut down Beeper Mini in 2024 after that app used a similar system-level workaround to bring iMessage to Android. ChatGPT's integration relies on the same kind of macOS access, and Apple has both the history and the legal motive — given the ongoing lawsuit — to restrict it.
Worth enabling?
For most users, the answer is probably not yet. The permissions required are significant, the legal situation between Apple and OpenAI is unresolved, and the long-term availability of the feature is genuinely uncertain. Power users on ChatGPT Work who want AI-assisted inbox triage may find it useful, but doing so means handing a third-party AI broad access to some of your most personal data.
