The Chat Place 0.4.0

The Chat Place 0.4.0

The Chat Place 0.4 expands the platforms you can use the app on to Linux, adds backing up and restoring your chats as well as exporting them, improves Copilot support and brings a number of other smaller changes.

An update to 0.3.2, still a pre-release. Installed copies offer this update and keep your sessions and settings.

Keys below are written for Windows. On a Mac, use Command for Ctrl. The Alt keys here are for Windows and Linux.

Added

• Linux (preview). The Chat Place now runs on Linux PCs, x64 and Arm: download TheChatPlace-linux-x64.AppImage or TheChatPlace-linux-arm64.AppImage, make it executable and run it. Its first start adds it to your desktop's menu, and it updates itself like the Windows and Mac apps. Orca reads it, and announcements are spoken through Orca. Thanks to @aaron-gh for the port. (#230)
• Back up your chats. Your Claude, Codex and Copilot conversations, memory and settings are stored on the computer where you run The Chat Place, and signing in on a new one doesn't bring them back. File, Back Up Now saves them all in one file in a folder you choose, with The Chat Place's own groups, names and hidden chats. Another drive or a cloud folder is best. Backing up, checking and restoring work in the background without taking focus: the status bar (Ctrl+9) shows what's happening, and a message says when they're done. (#433)
• Encrypted backups. Back Up Now asks for a passphrase. With one, the whole backup is encrypted, file names included. The passphrase isn't kept anywhere, so if you forget it, nobody can open the backup. (#435)
• Backups on a schedule. File, Backup Schedule backs up by itself every day or every week while The Chat Place is open, keeping as many as you choose. They can be encrypted too: the passphrase is kept where your computer protects it, so the schedule can use it with nobody there. (#437) (#442)
• Check a backup. File, Check Backup reads a backup back and says whether every file in it is whole. (#433)
• Restore from a backup. File, Restore from Backup brings a backup's chats back into the session list, on the same computer or a new one. Choose which ones: Space switches each between Restore and Skip. They come back in their groups (hidden ones hidden), and read-only: you can read, find and export them, not continue them. Restoring the same backup again updates them instead of adding copies. (#436) (#450)
• Export many chats at once. File, Export Chats lists the chats in the session list: choose the ones you want with Space, or Select All, pick Markdown, a web page or plain text, then a folder. Each chat becomes its own file, and no file is ever replaced. (#461)
• Chats Claude deletes stay readable. Claude Code deletes its chats after a while (30 days unless you change it). The Chat Place now keeps its own copy of each Claude chat it lists, so a chat Claude deletes stays in the list, read-only. Settings (Ctrl+Comma) shows how long each AI keeps chats, under History retention and kept copies (Alt+Y). (#438)
• Continue Here for Copilot chats. File, Continue Here (Ctrl+Shift+N) now carries on a chat started in Copilot CLI or another app: a new Copilot chat of your own in the same folder. Copilot can't copy a chat, so your first message goes with the conversation so far, your messages and Copilot's replies but not the commands it ran. It takes no extra request: only the first message's own. In the copy, the conversation so far is one row, "Earlier conversation", before your message. The original chat isn't changed. (#423)
• Choose a Copilot chat's model. In New Session (Ctrl+N), Model now lists the models Copilot offers you, each with the premium requests a message costs, such as "GPT-5 (1x)", and File, Change Model changes a Copilot chat's model from its next turn; the chat's heading says which model it's on. Copilot lists its models only for a chat, so New Session offers them once you've opened a Copilot chat here. (#422)
• Plan mode for Copilot chats. A Copilot chat can now start in Copilot's plan mode, where it works out a plan and doesn't edit your files: choose Plan under Permission mode in New Session (Ctrl+N) or Continue Here (Ctrl+Shift+N), or switch a chat between agent and plan mode with File, Change Permission Mode (Ctrl+Shift+O), as Shift+Tab does in Copilot CLI. Copilot still asks before anything that needs your permission, and the chat's heading says when it's in plan mode. (#424)
• Fewer questions from Copilot: Auto, your own rules, and Allow for This Chat. Copilot asks before every command and file change. Now, in a Copilot chat started here: Auto, in File, Change Permission Mode (Ctrl+Shift+O), lets it read, search and edit the chat's folder and read git without asking, while anything else still asks. Your rules, in copilot-rules.json in The Chat Place's folder, list exact commands you trust (npm test) and ones that must always ask. Allow for This Chat, in Answer (Ctrl+Shift+A), stops it asking again about that exact command in that chat. A rule can name git only to read, or for git add: git commit, push and other git that changes things always ask. After Auto changes a file, your rules and kept commands ask once. When something that would be answered asks, the chat says why. File, Chat Permissions (Ctrl+Shift+H) lists a chat's kept commands, to remove. (#426)
• Restart Copilot. File, Chat Permissions (Ctrl+Shift+H), then Restart Copilot (Alt+S), stops Copilot for every chat. It clears commands asking after a program that never ended or a shell that may have moved, without closing The Chat Place. If another chat is busy, it warns you first. (#426)
• Copilot account usage. View, Usage and Context (Ctrl+Shift+U) now shows how much of your account's chat-message, premium-request and completion allowances you've used and how much remains, and when each resets if Copilot says. The figures are shared across your Copilot chats. To get them, The Chat Place runs Copilot CLI briefly in the background; that starts no chat and uses no request. (#482)
• /wrap and other session commands work in Claude chats started here. Claude now has the session tools those commands and skills use in the desktop app: it can list the sessions in The Chat Place's list, look one up and search their messages. Archiving a chat started here hides it, as File, Hide Session does, and File, Bring Back Session returns it. Desktop app sessions are never changed: Claude says to archive them in the desktop app. (#165)

Changed

• New keys in Settings. Turn on Remote Control is now Alt+U and Include GitHub Copilot CLI chats is Alt+I. Their old keys were also the Cancel and OK buttons' on Linux. (#438)
• Bug reports cover Codex and Copilot. Help, Report a Bug now says which version of Claude, Codex and Copilot you have, whether each is turned on and signed in, and their recent errors with how long ago they happened. Session counts are given for each. It checks the sign-ins first, which takes a moment. (#464)
• Questions open on their text. When a chat asks you a question, Answer (Ctrl+Shift+A) now opens on a Question box you can read by line, with what the chat wrote just before asking, such as a draft it wants you to approve, and each question in full. When a choice comes with a preview, a Preview box after the questions shows the preview of the choice you're on. (#415)

Fixed

• Codex chats no longer stop updating after Allow for This Chat answers for you. The first time it answered a command by itself, Codex chats stopped updating and the running turn never finished. (#501)
• Older Codex chats open again. A Codex chat kept in Codex's older storage wouldn't open or export: it said "Couldn't load this Codex chat." (#494)
• Background agents in Claude chats keep working when you step away. When Claude answered with a background agent still running, the agent stopped 10 or 20 minutes later and waited for your next message. It now works for as long as it takes, and you hear Claude's answer when the agent is done. Until then the chat's row says working, and Turn Status (Ctrl+Shift+T) names the agent. (#485)
• Copilot chats no longer say they're open in another Copilot when they aren't. On a PC where VS Code's copilot command came first, every message to a Copilot chat started here was refused, because that command runs Copilot as a separate program. The Chat Place now prefers Copilot itself. (#463) (#484)
• Allow for This Chat now works for Codex's Git commands when PowerShell came from the Microsoft Store. On those PCs, Answer (Ctrl+Shift+A) didn't offer it, so every Git command asked each time. It usually keeps only the exact command it was offered for, so a push to another branch or a commit with another message asks again, and a commit message of several words isn't offered it yet: that's for a later release. (#307) (#478) (#500)
• A Codex chat no longer gets stuck after a turn fails. When a Codex turn failed, for example on a usage limit, every later message to that chat, and every hand-off to it in an agent conversation, was refused with "This Codex chat is not confirmed idle" until The Chat Place was restarted. It now sends. When Codex really is busy, the message says why, such as that it's waiting for you to approve something, and an agent conversation notes the same refusal once instead of again on every hand-off. (#448) (#460)
• Stopping a Copilot chat. Pressing Stop (Ctrl+Period) again no longer gives Copilot more time to stop, and says Copilot was already asked. Stopping before your message has gone to Copilot no longer warns that Copilot will be closed; the message comes back unsent. (#405) (#414)

Reporting Issues

Found a problem or have a suggestion? Help, Report a Bug fills in a report and shows you exactly what it includes before it goes anywhere: never your session titles, folders or messages.

1. Open on GitHub copies the report and opens a new GitHub issue with it filled in. This needs access to the repository.
2. Copy Report puts the report on the clipboard, to email to support@theideaplace.net.

Downloads

TheChatPlace-windows-Setup.exe, TheChatPlace-windows-Portable.zip, TheChatPlace-macos-arm64.dmg, TheChatPlace-linux-x64.AppImage and TheChatPlace-linux-arm64.AppImage, with the update feeds. See the user guide to get started, and the README for everything The Chat Place does.

Requirements

Windows 10 or 11, a Mac with Apple silicon, or a Linux PC (x64 or arm64) at least as new as Ubuntu 24.04, Debian 13 or Fedora 40, with FUSE 2 to run the AppImage (sudo apt install libfuse2t64) and Orca and speech-dispatcher for speech. For Claude chats: Claude Code, signed in to a Claude subscription. For Codex chats: the Codex app, the ChatGPT app or the Codex command-line tool, signed in to ChatGPT. For GitHub Copilot chats (preview): GitHub Copilot CLI, signed in to an account with Copilot. You need only the one you use.

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The Chat Place is an independent project by Kelly Ford, not made, sponsored or endorsed by Anthropic, OpenAI, Microsoft or GitHub. Claude and Claude Code are trademarks of Anthropic; ChatGPT and Codex are OpenAI products; GitHub Copilot is a product of GitHub, a Microsoft company.