A fair number of people using the ChatGPT app for Mac have recently encountered a strange and scary malware message when trying to open and use ChatGPT. The error says “Malware Blocked and Moved to Trash” and informs the user that “ChatGPT.app could not be opened because it contains malware. The action did not harm your Mac.”
These malware messages have caused a lot of stress for some Mac users who are worried that their Mac or ChatGPT application has been compromised. But if you see this message on your Mac when you open ChatGPT, don’t panic, because it’s probably a fake error because you’re using an old version of the ChatGPT application.
The error message you may see says something like this when you try to open ChatGPT: “Malware blocked and moved to trash – “ChatGPT.app” was not opened because it contains malware. This action did not harm your Mac.”
Why does my Mac think ChatGPT is malware?
The reason this happened is because OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, has revoked the security certificates for older versions of the ChatGPT app for Mac due to a third-party security incident. Basically this means that the app no longer has a valid digital signature, and macOS’s built-in security features and Xprotect anti-malware features then mark the app as unsafe, which automatically puts the app in the trash to protect your Mac.
How to Fix “ChatGPT.app Contains Malware” Error on Mac
- If you have seen the error message that ChatGPT contains malware, it will note that the malware has been blocked and moved to the trash, so, just go empty the Trash on your Mac to remove the app (also, it actually does not contain malware, the error message is displayed because of an invalid certificate in the ChatGPT app)
- Next, you want to re-download the latest available version of ChatGPT directly from OpenAI at
- Optional but recommended, it’s a good practice to update your MacOS system software to the latest version available so you have the latest security patches installed on your Mac.
- Use ChatGPT as usual
That’s it, ChatGPT should be back up and running again, with no malware warning.
If you’re on the techier side of things and feel like digging into the Channel, you can also check your version of Xprotect to see if it’s been updated, which your Mac will do periodically in the background, as long as it’s connected to the Internet. You can also use a free third-party tool like SilentKnight to check for and install Xprotect updates, but again if you keep your Mac up to date regularly, and connected to the Internet, it probably has the latest versions of Xprotect already installed. MacOS is very good at blocking malware and similar junk, and most users do not need to use any antivirus or anti-malware applications or utilities.
The type of curiosity may also be interested in the technical side of things from the OpenAI end, why the certificate was withdrawn from older versions of the applications, and what was the risk, which you can read about here on the OpenAI blog in the article “Our response to the attack on TanStack npm for the supply chain”.
Have you encountered this scary looking ChatGPT malware error message on Mac? Did you fix it? Share your experiences and thoughts in the comments.