OpenAI's Codex Can Now Use Your Mac Even When It's Locked
OpenAI has introduced a new feature for its Codex desktop app that allows it to operate on a Mac even when the device is locked. Users can send tasks to Codex from their phones, enabling it to interact with apps while the screen is off. This feature requires specific permissions and is not available in certain regions at launch.
- ▪OpenAI's Codex can now operate on a locked Mac, allowing users to send tasks from their phones.
- ▪The feature requires the Computer Use plugin and permissions for Screen Recording and Accessibility.
- ▪Codex can interact with apps, but it cannot automate Terminal apps or system-level admin prompts.
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| Original publisher | MacRumors |
| Canonical URL | https://www.macrumors.com/2026/05/22/codex-use-mac-apps-when-locked/ |
| Publication time | Fri, 22 May 2026 04:22:03 PDT |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-22T11:32:01.655Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-22T11:32:01.655Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
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| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | aIcMvWyzSHNI · 4 stories |
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| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
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| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
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| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
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| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
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OpenAI's Codex Can Now Use Your Mac Even When It's LockedFriday May 22, 2026 4:28 am PDT by Tim HardwickOpenAI has rolled out Computer Use for its Codex desktop app on macOS, and its latest trick is that your Mac doesn't even have to be unlocked for the coding agent to use your apps while you're away. In a post on X, OpenAI Developers said users can now send Codex tasks from their phone and have it operate apps on their Mac "even when the screen is off and locked." A picture attached to the post shows a locked Mac displaying a "Codex is Using Your Mac" overlay with a prompt to press any key or click to unlock. For the feature to work, the Computer Use plugin needs to be installed and granted Screen Recording and Accessibility permissions.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at MacRumors.
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