Android Remote chats started on a Mac host do not appear in desktop app history

Start by reproducing the Android Remote workflow against a saved local project, then compare the resulting phone-created chat with desktop-created entries in ~/.codex/session_index.jsonl and the desktop history views. Done means the same remote conversation appears in the desktop app for the host and project, including after reload, and can be continued there.

Android Remote chats started on a Mac host do not appear in the desktop app history

Summary

Chats started from the ChatGPT Android app through Remote against a paired Mac host execute work on that host, but those chats do not appear in the ChatGPT/Codex desktop app on the same Mac afterward. This has reproduced roughly ten times while iterating on CSS changes in a saved local project.

The documented behavior says a user can start a chat from a phone on a connected host and later open the desktop app and continue that same chat. In this case, the work and the conversation appear to be persisted through different session paths, leaving the phone-created conversation undiscoverable from the desktop UI.

Environment

• Host: Apple silicon Mac
• macOS: 26.4.1 (25E253)
• ChatGPT desktop bundle identifier: com.openai.codex
• ChatGPT desktop version: 26.721.41059 (build 5848)
• Bundled Codex CLI: 0.146.0-alpha.3.1
• Controller: ChatGPT app on Android (exact Android app/device build not currently available)
• Same ChatGPT account and workspace on both devices
• Project type: saved local Git project on the Mac host

Steps to reproduce

1. On the Mac, run the ChatGPT desktop app and enable Settings > Connections > Control this Mac.
2. Pair an Android phone and confirm the Mac is available under Remote in the Android ChatGPT app.
3. From Android, open the paired Mac host, select a saved local project, and start a new Codex chat.
4. Send prompts and let the chat modify or inspect files on the Mac host.
5. Return to the ChatGPT desktop app on that same Mac.
6. Select the same project, use the chronological chat filter, and check archived chats.

Expected behavior

The Android-started remote chat appears in the desktop app history for the same host/project and can be continued there.

Actual behavior

The work can run on the Mac host, but the Android-started chat is absent from the desktop app sidebar/history. Repeating the flow creates more phone-visible remote chats without making them discoverable on the desktop.

Restarting/reloading the desktop app and checking chronological and archived views does not recover the missing chats.

Diagnostic evidence

• The desktop task/project enumeration shows the saved project and recent desktop-created chats, but no matching Android-started chats.
• A prior attempted workaround manually ran persistent codex exec to create a second local handoff session. That new local session appeared in the desktop index, but it did not synchronize or repair the original Android-started conversation.
• The workaround identified the boundary as the phone/API conversation not being added to the desktop-visible local Codex session index (~/.codex/session_index.jsonl).
• This suggests a persistence/indexing mismatch between Android Remote-created chats and the host desktop history, rather than a project or application-code issue.

Frequency and impact

• Frequency: approximately 10/10 attempts in this workflow
• Impact: high friction and loss of conversational continuity when moving from phone testing back to the Mac; repeated work and troubleshooting were required.

Privacy note

Private project URLs, credentials, and full logs are intentionally omitted. Sanitized logs/session IDs can be supplied privately if requested.