Codex App [bug]: on MacOS, Control+B toggles sidebar while typing in Quick Chat
What version of the Codex App are you using (From “About Codex” dialog)?
26.715.31925 (build 5551)
What subscription do you have?
Not provided
What platform is your computer?
Darwin 24.6.0 arm64 arm
What issue are you seeing?
When the Quick Chat composer has keyboard focus, pressing Control+B is handled as the app-level sidebar toggle. The sidebar is shown or hidden instead of allowing the focused text field to process the key event.
This conflicts with the standard macOS text-editing binding, where Control+B moves the insertion point back one character. It makes cursor navigation unreliable while composing a Quick Chat message.
What steps can reproduce the bug?
- Open the Codex App and start a Quick Chat.
- Click in the message composer and enter a few characters, for example
abc. - Leave the insertion point in the composer.
- Press
Control+B. - Observe that the sidebar visibility changes rather than the insertion point moving one character to the left.
What is the expected behavior?
A focused Quick Chat composer should receive Control+B as its normal text-editing shortcut and move the insertion point back one character.
The sidebar visibility shortcut should be bound only to Command+B, so it does not override editing shortcuts in active text inputs.
Additional information
The behavior occurs specifically while entering text in Quick Chat.
7 Comments
BTW, this is not a high priority bug, but it is quite annoying.
Same here.
Removing the Command+B sidebar shortcut in Settings does not prevent Control+B from toggling the sidebar.
Still reproducible in 26.721.30844 on macOS arm64.
It occurs in Chat/Quick Chat, but Control-B works correctly as backward-character in Work mode.
Deleting or reassigning “Show or hide the sidebar” in Keyboard Shortcuts does not prevent Control-B from toggling the sidebar.
This is still an issue on 26.810.41047 (macOS arm64). Moreover, unbinding the Command-B shortcut for toggling sidebar in the settings did not actually unbind either Command-B or Control-B from toggling the sidebar, even though neither one is visible in the settings panel (and even though
.codex/keybindings.jsonhas an explicit set-shortcut-to-null for that action).I also tried rebinding a new shortcut to toggling the sidebar, which makes all three of Command-B, Control-B, and the new shortcut toggle the sidebar.
(Basically, it's as if there's a hard-coded listener for the Command-B and Control-B shortcuts at some other layer that isn't changeable through settings or the json file.)
I can reproduce this in the current ChatGPT macOS app (com.openai.codex). Ctrl+F, Ctrl+A, and Ctrl+E work as standard macOS Emacs-style editing shortcuts, but only Ctrl+B is intercepted by the app.
Still reproducible in ChatGPT 26.818.21641 (build 6849) on macOS 26.6.1 (25G76), arm64.
Scope: Chat composer only. When the composer has focus, Control+B toggles the app sidebar and prevents the standard macOS Emacs-style backward-character action. In Work and Codex composers, Control+B correctly moves the caret backward. Command+B continues to toggle the sidebar globally as expected.
This appears to be a regression/continuation of #10749. Please prioritize it because it breaks a long-standing macOS text-editing convention for users who rely on Emacs keybindings.
Feedback submitted from the affected ChatGPT desktop session with current session logs included.
Feedback ID:
01a01e0e-0e01-7b40-8cf8-ec353727eb02I also emailed OpenAI Support with this ID and a link to this issue so the reports can be correlated.