Click on the “…” button on an ongoing conversation.
The companion window pops out.
Minimize the desktop app.
Click anywhere outside the companion window and wait for approximately 10-30 seconds.
The companion will auto-refresh, and the ongoing conversation will disappear.
When reopening the desktop app, you will see the ongoing conversation labeled as “New Chat,” but clicking on it shows nothing.
To restore the conversation, you need to quit the app and reopen it.
Note: The “quit” mentioned in step 8 refers to fully closing the app, not just minimizing it to the system tray.
Feature request:
I think the “Alt + Space” shortcut to start a new chat is a great feature. However, I would prefer the option to configure the app’s behavior. Specifically, it would be helpful if users could choose whether closing the app minimizes it to the system tray or completely closes it.
This configuration could be presented as a setting, similar to the image below.
P.S.: I’m not sure if this is the correct place to provide feedback on the desktop app. If anyone knows the appropriate channel for feedback, please let me know. Thank you!
Finally, the Windows App has Landed! Well, well, well! It only took forever for us Windows folks to catch up to the Mac worshippers😄
But now that the ChatGPT app has finally made its way to Windows, I wanted to share some early thoughts on improvements - particularly in the user interface and interaction design, which is the stuff that impacts daily workflows.
Since it’s an early release, here’s my initial feedback on what is a starter must-have list
Companion Mode as default window - It’s fantastic how fast and easy the Companion Mode makes it to start a new conversation. But there’s a small problem with it - you can’t switch back to the main window unless you start a new conversation in this mode and then the “Continue Conversation” button shows up. Imagine if that button was just always there, allowing quick toggling to the main window Even double-clicking on the tray icon opens the companion mode, the application has to be open and waste the taskbar space or relaunched to open the main window… Even better to use a button - why not make a global shortcut to switch between companion and main windows mode?
Speaking of shortcuts, the default ALT + SPACE is great… unless, like me, you’ve got muscle memory tied to something like PowerToys Run or other launchers! It would be awesome to have a settings option to change this shortcut, so we can customize it without messing with existing workflow tools.
The position and dimension of companion mode windows and the main window don’t persist after closing the app. It’s super annoying and the dimension of the companion mode window is BTW limited. It should behave like other applications’ windows, where ALT + UP ARROW maximizes the window (with some margin for example), ALT + SIDE ARROWS snap to the side of the desktop. Only minimize with the down arrow works.
No Multi Main Window - It’s a bit limiting that we can’t have multiple ChatGPT main windows open at once. While the Companion Mode stays functional when the main window is open, clicking “Continue Conversation” just reuses the same window instead of opening a fresh one. Let’s get some multitasking love in here! A simple setting allowing multiple main windows could make a big difference
Giving us a few basic config options – like keyboard shortcut customization and multi-window support – would be a nice start. This would allow power users to adapt the app more easily to their daily workflows.
These are just some initial ideas on how the app could better integrate into users’ daily workflows Right now, I’m still using my packed-into-electron app ChatGPT.com site with its multitasking abilities ( subspaces and shit ), where I can quickly switch between many instances of Chat GPT launched as a subspace in the one windows (with icons on the left of the sidebar, but use shortcuts to switch between them).
It makes my prompt-spree sessions feel seamless during the busy workday.
Another issue, on my windows app, the conversation recording remains what I open it first time, even if other conversation has happen in other way like webpage, macOS desktop, mobile devices, the conversation is still keep what it looked like as it first launch at windows desktop.
The ability to refresh the window. If I use my phone for a new chat, this new conversation will not show up in the Desktop App. There needs to be a reload button. Currently my only workaround is to force shutdown the app from ctrl+alt+del then re-open, or logout and in again. The 2.0 version of this updated would simply be auto sync so you don’t even need to reload. Cross device compatibility is important as I work from multiple devices throughout my day.
There also needs to be the ‘record speech’ option like we have on the phone app. The Voice Mode option is OK, but if I’m pushing through 10 minute dictation of information that I need to get out there, the Voice Mode constantly interrupts my train of thought. I rarely use voice mode for this reason. It keeps interrupting me. I want to talk, break for 20 seconds whilst I think about what information I’m going to say, then keep dictating. So I constantly have to switch back to my phone when I need to voice to text large pieces of information.
These updates would greatly enhance the user experience!!!
Regarding your second point - yeah, that’s something that makes the AV almost frustratingly useless. And by the way - thanks for the hint about using the phone app’s voice recording functionality! I hadn’t thought of that, but it’s a great addition to my workflow.
But it’s not the app related issue, but the Advanced Voice Mode, but that’s just my guess.
Here’s what I found, guys - the developers snuck in a hidden shortcut!
It’s not listed on the shortcuts screen:
If you press CTRL + [Win] + K, the search in conversations pops up!
Great to have the ChatGPT Desktop app (Windows early access).
I want to share this feedback on version 1.2024.315:
Please, can you put back the search in chats function?! It was very useful to be able to search in my previous chats. But since two days that feature has been turned off.
The navigation order has been changed. Since two days the recent chats are above the list of recently used GPT’s. Suggested solution: give the user the posibility to choose which one is above (GPT list or Recent Chats). And give the user the possibility to select the number of favorite GPT’s (more than 5 or 10). Give both Recent Chats and Fav GPT a slide bar if necessary.
EricGT
That’s strange as this shortcut works also in the browser version. Maybe this shortcut is used with some app.You can see the system-wide used shortcuts by for example NIrSoft’s AutoHotkeyLists.
laszo You should be able to altogether disable the companion window hotkey.
in the “settings > application”, there’s such option to change the companion app shortcuts. Whoops, sorry - I’ve just checked and you can change the shortcut, but not remove it. But you can do this with some 3-rd party software. There’s the PowerToys shortcut remapper, you can use also a HotKey(but this is a jack-of-all-trades solution, excessive for this purpose)
Strange, there is a search in chat as usual. My current version is also 1.2024.315
Oh, I’ve just noticed this - The recent chats list above the list of pinned CustomGPTs is a fatal idea… The worst of it is that “See more…” to show the previous conversation is showing as a flyout. Your feature request suggestion seems like a great idea.
I like the Alt+Space short cut to bring up a new chat, but just wanted to point out that it overrides the menu short cut on other apps. I use a (little known) sequence of [Alt+space, ‘m’, left arrow key] to recover windows that have gone off the desktop. Thats something thats been a feature in windows for decades!
I noticed a bug that was probably introduced with the reordering of the messages on the top with a flyout for historical conversations. The searched conversation shows at the bottom of the visible last conversations, but continuing the conversation doesn’t put it on the top of the list. This happens in this case, 'cos the renaming conversation works as expected.
I noticed a bug where once a GPT is used and you have the left panel pinned, the icon to start a new non-GPT conversation (ChatGPT 4o) won’t respond and you will be stuck with your last choosen custom GPT.
As a workaround, If you hide the left panel and press again on new chat it will revert back to ChatGPT 4o.
ChatGPT version: 1.2024.326 (Plus subscription, windows 10)
Another frustrating bug is that the prompt written in companion mode disappears when opening the main window before sending.
It sounds like a small inconvenience but many times I’ve lost my prompt by automatically opening the main window, 'coz the prompt is getting longer than I expected and the companion mode has very limited possibility to resize the width and height. It’s also not persistent between app restarting (which happens often sometimes because of many reasons, some of them wrote in this thread).
