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OpenAI's Codex now learns from your screen to build context
21 Apr 2026

OpenAI has released a new version of its Codex app for Mac, bringing the innovative "Chronicle" feature.

The update is aimed at enhancing the user experience by improving context awareness without requiring overly specific prompts or repeating details.

The move is part of OpenAI's plan to make Codex more useful for a wider range of builders, not just software engineers.

Chronicle builds on existing memory capabilities
Feature evolution

The Chronicle feature builds on Codex's existing memory capabilities, which allow it to learn from conversation history for better context.

It goes a step further by using recent screen content to improve understanding.

This way, Codex can pick up on things like errors on the screen or documents you have open and learn how you work over time.

How to use Chronicle on Codex
User control

Chronicle works by running background agents to create memories from screen captures, which are stored temporarily on the device.

Users can inspect and edit these memories, but should note that other apps may access these files.

For privacy, Chronicle can be paused or disabled anytime from Codex's menu bar app. However, OpenAI warns that the feature consumes rate limits quickly due to its current design.

Things to remember
User guide

The Chronicle feature is available as a research preview for Pro subscribers on Mac.

To enable it, users need to open the settings in the Codex app, go to personalization and make sure memories are enabled.

Then they can turn on Chronicle below the memories setting, review a consent dialog and choose continue.

After granting macOS screen recording and accessibility permissions when prompted, they can try out this new feature or start a new thread.