Hi OpenAI team,
As a longtime Plus subscriber and educator, I’ve been excited about the potential of the new native Mac app. The design is clean, the performance is solid, and the ⌥ + Space shortcut is genuinely useful for casual queries. But for those of us using ChatGPT as a serious educational tool — not just a chatbot — the current app falls short of being practical.
In my case, I teach digital photography at the college level and have built a full suite of instructional tools using ChatGPT Projects and Canvas documents. These include detailed grading threads, a long-running Knowledge File for my custom assistant (Art 35 Photo Assistant), and curriculum-integrated discussions. The Canvas format has become a vital workspace for deep thinking and structured collaboration — not just with GPTs, but with my own material.
Unfortunately, none of this is accessible in the Mac app.
What I need (and I suspect many others do too):
- Access to Projects and Canvas docs within the app
- Ability to upload and edit DOCX and PDF files
- Optional: Project-aware navigation or linking within the assistant window
The web version handles this beautifully, but as things stand, the Mac app is a sleek shell — great for casual interactions, but not equipped for creators, teachers, or professionals managing long threads or working on real-time documents.
I’d love to see these advanced tools make their way into the Mac app in a future release. I think it could turn a nice utility into a powerhouse for serious users who are building educational ecosystems, not just chatting.
Thanks for considering — and thanks for all the tools you’ve already made available.
David Wilson
Photography Instructor, College of the Redwoods