›_ Codex Issues
Codex Issues / #40262

Side chats disappear and cannot be reopened from history or mobile

Open 💬 1 comment Opened Aug 23, 2026 by zinovevvv

What issue are you seeing?

Side chats / side conversations in Codex can effectively disappear after leaving them. I can start a side chat, use it normally, and then later have no obvious way to return to it.

The conversation is not exposed like a normal persistent Codex thread in history, and it is also not reliably available from ChatGPT on mobile. This makes side chats unsafe for any useful or important work because the user cannot tell whether the conversation will remain accessible after switching away from it.

Steps to reproduce

  1. Open Codex Desktop.
  2. Start a side chat / side conversation from an existing Codex conversation.
  3. Have a normal conversation in the side chat.
  4. Switch away from the side chat or return to the parent conversation.
  5. Try to find and reopen the side chat later from Codex history.
  6. Try to find the same conversation from ChatGPT on iOS / Remote.

Actual behavior

There is no clear, reliable way to find and reopen the previous side chat. From the user's perspective it appears to have disappeared.

This is especially confusing because the side chat behaves like a normal capable conversation while it is open, so there is no strong indication that it may be ephemeral or difficult/impossible to recover later.

Expected behavior

At least one of the following should be supported:

  • Side chats should appear in conversation history and be reopenable.
  • The parent conversation should expose a list of its side chats.
  • Side chats should have a persistent ID/deep link that can be copied and reopened.
  • There should be a "Promote to normal chat" action.
  • If a side chat is intentionally ephemeral, the UI should clearly warn the user before they put important work into it.
  • Ideally, persistent side chats should also be visible/reopenable from mobile when the associated Codex conversation is available there.

Why this matters

The current behavior makes it very easy to lose access to useful context, decisions, or work performed in a side chat. It also makes users hesitant to use the feature at all.

Related: #40199, which asks for documentation of side-conversation identity, lifecycle, persistence, and limitations. This issue is specifically about the user-facing inability to reliably return to an existing side chat after leaving it.

Environment

  • Codex Desktop on macOS
  • ChatGPT iOS for mobile access
  • Observed August 23, 2026

View original on GitHub ↗

1 Comment

eldenmoon · 2 days ago

I can reproduce this specifically across a full app restart on macOS:

  • Codex Desktop 26.820.60940
  • Open a parent Codex chat and start a side chat.
  • Exchange several messages in the side chat.
  • Quit Codex completely and relaunch the app.
  • Reopen the parent chat and try to find the side chat.

The side chat is not present in history and I cannot recover it. This is stronger than merely switching away: the context is lost across a full process restart.

I would strongly prefer side chats to be persistent first-class threads that can be reopened after restart, ideally with a parent-chat relationship and a “Promote to regular chat” option. If side chats are intentionally ephemeral, the UI should clearly warn users and offer an explicit save/promote action.

Posting this as a comment here rather than creating a duplicate issue because this report appears to cover the same persistence request.