Codex Desktop: bulk export all generated outputs from a chat
What variant of Codex are you using?
Codex / ChatGPT desktop app on macOS. Ideally, this should work consistently on Windows as well.
What feature would you like to see?
Please add a first-class way to export multiple or all files generated in a single chat.
A chat can produce many outputs—for example images, videos, PDFs, documents, spreadsheets, presentations, archives, datasets, and source files. Even when individual output cards are available, retrieving a large set one file at a time is slow and error-prone.
This request is specifically for bulk management of chat outputs, not the existing issues about making an individual generated-file link or image Download button work.
Requested behavior
Add a Generated outputs view or equivalent action scoped to the current chat:
- List all downloadable outputs generated in the chat.
- Allow multi-select and Select all.
- Provide Export selected and Export all actions.
- Expose appropriate actions through the context menu.
- Export multiple outputs as a ZIP while preserving their original filenames and useful folder grouping.
- Handle filename collisions safely.
- Support images, videos, documents, spreadsheets, presentations, PDFs, archives, datasets, source files, and other binary or text outputs.
- Exclude user inputs, temporary files, and intermediate artifacts by default.
- Show export progress, the final destination, and actionable per-file errors.
- Support both local workspace outputs and remotely stored chat attachments when they are downloadable by the current user.
- Respect workspace permissions, sandbox policy, and remote-transfer limits.
For a single selected item, the existing Download / Save As behavior can remain unchanged. The new capability is selecting several outputs or exporting all outputs from the chat in one operation.
Example workflow
- Ask Codex to create a report, spreadsheet, charts, source data, and several images.
- Open the chat's generated-output list.
- Choose Select all or select only the final deliverables.
- Choose Export selected.
- Select a destination.
- Receive one ZIP containing the selected outputs, with a completion summary.
Why this matters
Deliverable-oriented chats often create several related files. Users currently have to find each artifact in the transcript and retrieve it individually. It is easy to miss a file or save inconsistent versions.
A chat-scoped bulk export would make generated outputs portable, reviewable, and easy to hand off without requiring users to search the workspace or repeat downloads one at a time.
Related issues
These cover adjacent individual-file or workspace-transfer behavior, but not chat-scoped multi-select / export-all:
- #32105 — generated file attachments and individual download controls missing in the desktop app
- #35945 — generated Markdown download rendered as non-clickable text
- #36469 — generated image Download action fails in Chat mode
- #26620 — drag individual response file references or artifact cards to external apps
- #31258 — dragging a generated image to Finder can crash the macOS renderer
- #31674 — drag files and folders from the workspace file browser to Finder
- #29316 — drag files and folders into the workspace file tree
- #34394 — download selected files or folders from a remote workspace
I searched open and closed issues using terms including download all, bulk download, generated outputs, generated file download, and right-click download, and could not find an existing request for multi-select or Export all generated outputs from a desktop chat.