An unofficial ChatGPT desktop app for Linux, created by Milad Dadgar and published under MilMit.

ChatDesk Linux opens https://chatgpt.com in isolated Electron sessions and adds native Linux workflows around it. It does not inject custom JavaScript or CSS into ChatGPT and does not claim to be an official OpenAI client.

ChatDesk Linux is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by OpenAI. ChatGPT and OpenAI are trademarks of their respective owners.

• Quick Capture from the Linux clipboard or X11/Wayland selection with Ctrl+Shift+Space
• Independent profile windows with separate persistent sessions, titles, colors, and saved bounds
• Compact Mode with animated left/right docking and always-on-top behavior
• Workspace presets for profile, window size, compact mode, side, zoom, theme, start page, and shortcut
• Prompt Library with categories, favorites, shortcuts, and {clipboard}, {selection}, {date}, and {profile} variables
• Advanced Command Palette with fuzzy search, favorites, recent commands, profiles, prompts, and workspaces
• chatdesk:// deep links for new chats, panels, profiles, Quick Capture, and workspaces
• Share to ChatDesk through file associations, launcher arguments, drag-and-drop, and a local staging queue
• Private capture history, disabled by default, with secret detection, bounded history, mode 0600, and Linux keyring encryption when a secure backend exists
• Installation Health, built-in sanitized Log Viewer, and a privacy-safe Report Issue wizard
• Animated profile switching, download completion, activity cards, Compact Mode, and Command Palette transitions
• CodeQL, dependency review, Dependabot, SPDX SBOMs, SHA-256 checksums, and signed GitHub artifact attestations for public releases

• Native Ubuntu/Linux title bar and application menu
• Animated splash, offline screen, Retry flow, and crash recovery
• Persistent window size, position, maximized state, and single-instance handling
• System tray and optional minimize-to-tray
• Configurable global shortcuts with Wayland portal support
• English and Persian local interface with RTL support
• System/light/dark themes, zoom, spell-check, autostart, and hardware acceleration controls
• Download progress, speed, pause, resume, cancel, open, show in folder, notifications, and floating Activity Center
• Manual and optional daily GitHub release checks
• Diagnostics, Safe Mode, settings export/import, and factory reset

Default shortcut:

Ctrl+Shift+Space

Quick Capture can read the regular clipboard or Linux selection buffer, apply a saved prompt template, choose a profile, and open either the current chat, a new chat, or an independent profile window. It copies the prepared text locally; paste it with Ctrl+V.

It deliberately does not automate ChatGPT's DOM or send messages without user confirmation. That would be brittle and would weaken the security boundary.

Each profile receives a separate persistent Electron partition:

Personal
Work
Testing

Use Tools → Profiles or the Command Palette to open separate windows. Cookies and login sessions are not shared between profile partitions.

Compact Mode docks a narrow always-on-top window to either side of the current display. Workspaces save a repeatable combination of:

• profile;
• width and height;
• compact mode and dock side;
• always-on-top;
• zoom;
• local theme;
• current or new-chat start page;
• optional global shortcut.

After installing the DEB/AppImage desktop integration, examples include:

xdg-open 'chatdesk://new?profile=work'
xdg-open 'chatdesk://capture?profile=personal'
xdg-open 'chatdesk://open/settings'
xdg-open 'chatdesk://open/downloads'
xdg-open 'chatdesk://workspace?id=coding'
xdg-open 'chatdesk://profile?profile=testing'

Unknown actions and invalid identifiers are rejected.

Supported text, PDF, JSON, and common image files can be opened with ChatDesk or dragged onto Tools → Share to ChatDesk. Files are staged locally and shown in a Drop Zone. ChatDesk does not silently upload them or bypass ChatGPT's file picker.

Capture history is off by default and only stores text explicitly submitted through ChatDesk. It:

• rejects likely passwords, tokens, private keys, and card-like values;
• stores at most the configured number of items;
• uses file mode 0600;
• uses Electron safe storage backed by GNOME Keyring/KWallet when a secure backend is available;
• falls back to file permissions only when Linux exposes no secure keyring backend, and reports that state in the UI.

ChatGPT pages may write sanitized text to the clipboard on approved ChatGPT/OpenAI origins. Clipboard reads by the remote page remain denied. To test the native path:

Tools → Diagnostics → Test Clipboard

Then paste into a text editor.

• Ctrl+Shift+M: show or hide ChatDesk
• Ctrl+Shift+Space: Quick Capture
• Ctrl+Shift+P: Command Palette
• Ctrl+Shift+C: Compact Mode
• Ctrl+Shift+A: Activity Center

Workspace and prompt shortcuts are configurable. On Wayland, desktop portal approval may be required.

• Tools → Installation Health checks sandbox setup, data-directory access, network state, notifications, deep-link registration, shortcuts, and profile partitioning.
• Tools → Logs filters, copies, exports, and clears sanitized local logs.
• Help → Report a Problem generates a reviewable Markdown report without cookies, prompts, or conversation content.
• chatdesk-linux --safe-mode disables optional integrations and animations for troubleshooting.

Requires Node.js 24 or newer.

npm install
npm test
npm run check
npm start

# Optional real Electron shell smoke test on Linux
npm run test:ui

Do not run npm audit fix --force blindly; it may downgrade or break the build toolchain.

npm run dist:linux

Outputs are written to dist/ as AppImage and DEB packages.

Tagged GitHub builds run syntax checks, unit/contract tests, an Electron smoke test under Xvfb, AppImage/DEB packaging, SPDX SBOM generation, SHA-256 checksum generation, build-provenance attestation, and SBOM attestation. CodeQL and dependency review run separately.

Verify checksums:

sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS --ignore-missing

Verify GitHub provenance after publishing:

gh attestation verify ./chatdesk-linux-0.5.1-x86_64.AppImage -R MilMit/chatdesk-linux

A committed npm lockfile is still required before claiming byte-for-byte reproducible dependency resolution. The current workflow provides traceable and cryptographically signed provenance, not traditional GPG package signing.

Remote ChatGPT content has Node.js integration disabled, context isolation enabled, Chromium sandboxing enabled, navigation restrictions, a permission allowlist, and no privileged preload bridge. Local UI IPC validates senders and exposes explicit channel allowlists.

Read SECURITY.md before changing security controls.

MIT licensed. Derived from xanmoy/chatgpt-desktop-client; the original copyright notice is preserved.

After signing in with GitHub CLI and reviewing the changes:

npm run release:github

The script runs tests, builds AppImage and DEB assets, creates checksums and an SPDX SBOM, pushes main and the version tag, and ensures the GitHub Release contains the artifacts.

ChatDesk keeps long Thinking responses active in the background, avoids treating temporary renderer stalls as crashes, records privacy-safe stream errors in Diagnostics, and offers Recover Current Chat to reload the same conversation when the server has completed an answer after a connection interruption.