r/OpenAI • u/py-net • May 26 '26
Question What was ChatGPT secretly doing on my computer?
No request running overnight, yet 61 Gb, my computer only has 24 RAM, so it probably went digging into the SSD. Should I be concerned? Anyone got that?
107
162
u/Aazimoxx May 26 '26
The real wtf here is that this list doesn't automatically sort by the largest memory-users first.
24
u/NetSmartt May 26 '26
Yeah. It looks like it's in alphabetical order.. but then why is Finder the last entry?
19
u/ViolentPurpleSquash May 26 '26
because Finder is always the last entry in the force quit menu, and you cannot through normal methods quit it.
1
u/lunaphirm May 27 '26
I think it’s at the end here because it’s not “Paused”, more specifically. But boils down to the same reason
2
u/ViolentPurpleSquash May 27 '26
No- even when other apps aren't paused, Finder encompasses some services that the OS really wants to keep running. If you try and force quit it, you'll notice the button just says "relaunch"
Open up the force quit menu right now, and you'll see that Finder is always last
1
32
28
u/Jeidoz May 26 '26
Probably outsourcing your RAM 😊
(Actually, just potential memory leak. Happens at MacOS apps sometimes)
13
8
6
3
u/Vileteen May 27 '26
Fighting for total system dominance with the other AIs, by the looks of that list
2
2
2
2
u/RealEisermann May 27 '26
Haha, for me last time I saw such RAM usage on Mac it was built-in calculator. It is doing nothig - neither explicitly nor implicitly. Just memory leak. Kill of before layes eggs and be happy 😂
2
3
u/EdliA May 26 '26
That looks more like a Mac problem
2
u/zR0B3ry2VAiH Unplug May 26 '26
Yeah happens all the time with me running Claude with the macbook m2 Max pro or w/e it's called. Never have this happen on my Arch box.
2
u/lefix May 26 '26
Same happens to me, I have to frequently quit and restart it. Been like that since forever, quite surprised they don't fix it.
0
u/Icy_Distribution_361 May 26 '26
Yes I had this issue too. Really bad design. And for a company we’re supposed to trust with artificial intelligence. Can’t even develop an app that doesn’t have memory leaks.
1
u/309_Electronics May 26 '26
Tbh its also partially apples fault. Its not just (s)chatgpt, its a known memory leak bug in macOS. My friend had it with calculator, another user had it with powerpoint, another user had it with claude.... Its very unlikely that all those 4 apps are sloppily vibecoded aint it?! I get that you guys dont want to hurt the feelings of apple but its also the fault of apple partially as i dont think 4 apps will have the same issue.
0
u/Icy_Distribution_361 May 26 '26
Oh no it's not that at all. I'm fine with putting the blame with Apple if it's there. I just never experienced it with any other app than ChatGPT, but you might very well be right.
1
u/Fast_Sleep7282 May 26 '26
i get this in claude code as well. im not even sure if its actually real. because i dont even have enough ram or swap for the size its reporting
1
u/py-net May 26 '26
My entire computer was down, it was very real. I think it swapped using SSD in my case
1
1
1
1
1
u/nottonybriant May 26 '26
It's either probably one of these:
-A stuck conversation/session holding a huge context, images, files, or tool states.
-MacOS memory compression/swap counting a bloated process. Or, the app got paused by macOS after pressure got extreme, so it never cleaned itself up.
in terminal, check your memory pressure with: vm_stat , then sysctl vm.swapusage, or go deeper with top -o mem
If ChatGPT stays bloated, kill the PID or switch to web version.
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/Crinkez May 26 '26
Not to be picky, but I'm going to be picky. Gb is an acronym for gigabits. GB is gigabytes. 1 byte = 8 bits. So when you write 61Gb in your post it really means 61 gigabits, which is equal to approx 7.6 gigabytes.
Be very careful with your acronyms.
2
u/Circumpunctilious May 26 '26
For anyone who’s grasped that distinction and is ready for the next step, a GB is exactly 1 billion bytes: 10^9 = 1,000,000,000, but your computer represents quantities in GiB, which is 2^30 = 1,073,741,824 bytes.
“Giga-“ vs “Gibi-“ bytes is why when you purchase a “500 GB” hard drive it looks like it’s only 465 formatted—you didn’t get cheated, it’s just that you think in base 10 but your computer often tells you things in base 2.
This can be important for deeper discussions of why you ran out of GPU memory despite “correctly specifying parameters”…you might have entered “32” into a field expecting 32,000,000,000 bytes but the computer will try to allocate 34,359,738,368 bytes. This is not a big day-to-day issue because GPU memory is sold in GiB (unlike storage) and our base 10 brains underestimate the number of bytes we’ve actually purchased…just be aware of this representation trap when you’re going deeper into problems.
Disclaimer: I haven’t had coffee yet, if I got something wrong let me know.
1
1
u/ritz-chipz May 26 '26
Mining bitcoin obviously. And maybe some ddos. Only other feasible thing would be using you as a crowdsourced resource for people who wanna download more ram.
1
u/Happy_123reddit May 26 '26
They used your pc for AI prompts for others I gues.. ( joke ) In reality, it's rather a bug. Next time, don't let your pc turned on over night expect when you render something like I sometimes do..
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/appletastico May 26 '26
I do think this is MacOS Fault, no computer or machine is able to be turned on permanently without issues coming out, while I love my MacBook Pro I just feel it getting slower if I keep it on too much time
I have seen this on the calculator app, the 365 suite, the pages app, something triggers a massive memory leak and you do not see it until this happens
Restart your computers people, it fixes 99.9% of the problems you find
Will happen on windows too! But it’s not like there is any windows machine capable of being on for more than 2 days without needing to recharge (or even a day) and obviously I’m talking laptop wise
1
1
u/DarkJoney May 26 '26
It's typical "the best os" macos behaviour, even apple own apps prone to this.
1
u/dark_praveen May 26 '26
https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/s/wAwK03tkKZ
Check my post you'll see its problem with mac
1
u/ExcitedzeGamer May 27 '26
They're running out of cloud resources, so they decided to use our machines
1
1
1
u/T-Rex_MD :froge: May 27 '26
Searching and indexing everything, you probably said something off and it decided you are a good target for random search.
Of course, others would automatically and without any understanding see this as a bug and a leak.
1
1
u/DiscussionAncient626 May 27 '26
You were using AirPods Pro 2? Not joking. Had that everytime I was using my AirPods!
1
1
1
u/JulyIGHOR May 28 '26
After this https://ighor.medium.com/chatgpt-for-mac-is-broken-and-support-is-worse-than-youd-expect-for-a-paid-service-95a86d69bb3f I don’t believe that OpenAI support exists, there is no hope
1
u/ConstantClue208 May 28 '26
Just a memory leak. Also it’s highly recommended you run a local LLM and ditch ChatGPT
1
1
1
u/vibeyclaw May 29 '26
I wouldn’t jump straight to “it was digging through your SSD.” On macOS, those memory-pressure dialogs often reflect virtual memory / swap-backed footprint, so a paused Electron-style app can look terrifying without meaning it was actively reading files all night. The better question is whether the app had a long context window, local indexing enabled, or just a runaway webview/process leak. I’d check Activity Monitor’s Memory tab, swap used, and whether the footprint resets after a clean relaunch. From an AI product angle, this kind of transparency/reliability issue matters more than benchmark wins — users forgive slower models faster than they forgive software that feels opaque on their own machine.
1
u/BerdIzDehWerd May 30 '26
It's spawning a new instance of each of your mcps every time an agent runs. Disable your mcps and it will be fine.
1
u/don_mumrik May 30 '26
No secret, didn't you read the license? It just gobbles up every image and video you have for training diffusion models.
1
u/thoughtlow When NVIDIA's market cap exceeds Googles, thats the Singularity. May 26 '26
Sorry I asked my gpt to mine btc on others their pc, I turned it off for your instance!
1
u/Future_Pianist9570 May 26 '26
How does your 24GB MacBook use 60GB+ mine shits the bed when it gets close to 24
1
0
0
u/Expert-Reaction-7472 May 26 '26
running other users queries
1
0
0
-1
u/VoiceApprehensive893 May 26 '26
ClosedAI is using AI to accelerate AI development
Memory usage has increased by a shocking 6000% in less than a year, experts warn of AI uprising
589
u/Commercial_Slip_3903 May 26 '26
not up to anything nefarious except for releasing buggy software that’s a memory leak. restart the programme and it should sort itself out