It’s too late to just update ChatGPT, now you need to re-upload it from the developer
There have been a few incidents involving a Mac telling a user that the ChatGPT app is malware and moving it to the Trash. Overall, ChatGPT is not malware and there is a very simple solution.
It’s not Apple passing judgment on the value of the ChatGPT app on Mac, it’s macOS doing its job. As of 2022, macOS includes Xprotect, a feature you usually never need to know about, but which protects the Mac against malware.
In this case, as reported by users around the world on social media, Xprotect had concluded that the ChatGPT application contained malware. Therefore, the whole application is suspicious, so macOS moves it to the Trash and does not launch it.
There is nothing wrong with ChatGPT and it will not install malware on users’ Macs. To continue using it, the easiest way is to reinstall ChatGPT directly from the developer.
Apple’s Xprotect warning was legitimate, however, because of how it decides apps are legitimate and how OpenAI changed that evidence for ChatGPT and ChatGPT Atlas. Apps are notarized via a certificate proving they are legitimate, but OpenAI opted for a new certificate due to security concerns.
“We recently identified a security issue involving a third-party development tool, Axios, which was part of a broader incident widely reported in the industry,” OpenAI wrote in a blog post. “Out of an abundance of caution, we are taking steps to protect the process that certifies that our macOS applications are legitimate OpenAI applications.”
The company emphasizes that it found no evidence of modification of applications or access to user data. It has also sent notifications through its apps that users should urgently update before May 8, 2026.
But for users who haven’t done so, their copies of ChatGPT and ChatGPT Atlas are no longer notarized and the Mac will not run them. It’s inconvenient to have to re-download apps, but if OpenAI hadn’t done this, bad actors could have created what would appear to be entirely legitimate ChatGPT apps.
Additionally, if Xprotect didn’t work the way it does, there would still be no way to prevent such malware from being installed on Macs.