Unified ChatGPT/Codex macOS app omits generated file attachments visible on the web

Open 💬 4 comments Opened Jul 10, 2026 by sichgeis

What version of the Codex App are you using (From “About Codex” dialog)?

Exact build not captured. This was reproduced in the newly released unified ChatGPT/Codex macOS app on July 10, 2026.

What subscription do you have?

ChatGPT Pro

What platform is your computer?

macOS. The exact OS build and Mac architecture were not captured.

What issue are you seeing?

The unified ChatGPT/Codex macOS application does not display generated downloadable file attachments in assistant responses.

The same conversation, opened through chatgpt.com with the same account, correctly displays all generated files and allows them to be downloaded. This appears to be a native-client attachment rendering or message-hydration bug, not a file-generation failure.

In the macOS app:

The assistant response text is visible.
The bullet labels describing the generated documents are visible.
The generated files themselves are not represented.
There is no Download file button.
There are no file-type icons.
The filenames are not clickable.
There is no indication that attachments exist.

In the web application:

The same assistant response contains a Download file button for the ZIP archive.
Generated Markdown and JSON documents appear with file icons.
The filenames are clickable and downloadable.

The affected response contained a ZIP archive, several Markdown documents, and a JSON manifest.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

Open a conversation in the unified ChatGPT/Codex macOS application.
Ask ChatGPT to create downloadable files, such as a ZIP archive, Markdown documents, and a JSON manifest.
Have the assistant present links to the generated files in its response.
Observe the response in the macOS application.
Open the same conversation on chatgpt.com using the same account.
Compare the same assistant message in both clients.

What is the expected behavior?

Generated file attachments associated with an assistant message should be displayed consistently across the web application and the unified macOS application.

The macOS application should show the same attachment cards, filenames, file-type icons, and download controls as the web application.

Actual behavior

The macOS application renders the surrounding assistant text but omits the generated-file controls and attachment links entirely. The files are visible and downloadable in the web application.

Evidence

Two screenshots of the same conversation provide an A/B comparison:

Unified ChatGPT/Codex macOS app: the bullet labels are visible, but there is no download button, file icon, clickable filename, or attachment card.
ChatGPT web app: the same response shows a Download file button and clickable Markdown and JSON file attachments.

The screenshots demonstrate that the artifacts exist on the backend and that only the macOS client fails to expose them.

Workaround

Open the same conversation on chatgpt.com and download the generated files through the web interface.

Suggested investigation

Please compare the message content blocks and attachment metadata received by the web client and the unified macOS client for the same assistant message. Possible areas to inspect include:

generated-file attachment content blocks being dropped during native-client message hydration;
file-link or artifact-card nodes being flattened into plain text;
unsupported handling of ChatGPT generated-file links by the unified desktop Markdown renderer;
attachment metadata being filtered when a normal ChatGPT conversation is displayed in the Codex-style conversation window.

Related issues

#27348 — local file references in assistant responses are not clickable in the macOS Codex app
#31862 — desktop UX regressions in the unified ChatGPT/Codex app
#25202 — linked artifacts do not render in another ChatGPT client

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