ChatGPT or Codex desktop app filling your disk? Day 9 cuts stored state by about 60%

#What changed

On Oct 13, 2026, Tibo (Thibault Sottiaux of OpenAI's Codex team) posted Day 9 of the Codex daily-ship run: OpenAI rolled out changes to how the ChatGPT and Codex desktop app stores its state on disk, which he says should cut the amount stored by about 60%. He called it a small ship made because power users kept running out of disk space.

The Codex CLI got a related but separate fix earlier: version 0.160.0 added background reclamation of unused log database space to reduce disk usage, per the official Codex changelog.

#Who is affected

Anyone running the ChatGPT and Codex desktop app, and especially heavy users with many long threads who have watched it eat disk space. Codex CLI users are covered by the separate CLI fix above, not by this desktop change.

#What to do now

• Let the desktop app pick up the latest build, and restart it if an update is waiting.
• If disk space was your problem, note your free space before and after updating so you can see whether the savings show up on your machine.
• If you also use the Codex CLI, make sure you are on 0.160.0 or later (the changelog's latest is 0.162.1): npm install -g @openai/codex@latest.

#What is not confirmed

• The 60% figure is OpenAI's own estimate ("should reduce"); there is no independent measurement yet.
• No desktop app version number or release note came with the post, and the change was not yet listed in the Codex changelog when this was written.
• It isn't stated whether existing stored data shrinks right away or only new state benefits, or whether every platform got it at the same time.