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Start here if you are brand new to this.

On August 20, 2026, OpenAI released something called the Apple Messages plugin for ChatGPT.

In plain English: ChatGPT can now open your text messages on your Mac, read them, search them, answer questions about them, and write replies for you to send.

This guide gives you the setup and, more importantly, the exact prompts to copy and paste. You do not need to know anything technical.

Bookmark this page so you can come back to it.

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First, What Is a "Plugin"?

A plugin is an add-on. Think of it like an app you install inside ChatGPT that gives it one new ability.

This particular add-on gives ChatGPT the ability to work with your Messages app. You install it once, and it stays there.

Here is what changes. Right now, if you want ChatGPT's help writing a text, you have to copy the conversation out of Messages, paste it into ChatGPT, get a draft, copy that draft, and paste it back into Messages. Five steps for one reply.

With this plugin, you skip all of it. You just ask.

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Think of it this way: you have hired an assistant who can look through your texts and answer questions about them, and who can write replies for you when you say go. That assistant only works when you are sitting at your Mac with ChatGPT open. It never does anything on its own.

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What it can do:

• Search every message you have ever sent or received
• Summarize a conversation or a long group chat
• Tell you what you never replied to
• Write a reply in your own style
• Send messages, after you approve them
• Delete messages and clear out spam

What it cannot do:

• It does not work the other way around. You cannot text ChatGPT from your phone and have it reply. You have to be at your Mac.
• It does not run on a schedule or watch your messages in the background. Nothing happens until you ask.