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Use cloud storage in ChatGPT and Codex

Let ChatGPT and Codex work on files in any storage RaiDrive supports — a cloud drive, object storage or a NAS — through a RaiDrive drive. Open a folder on the drive in the ChatGPT desktop app, or start Codex CLI (a program that runs in a terminal, a window where you type commands) in that folder.

Before you begin

  • A drive connected in RaiDrive — see Create your first drive. The examples use Dropbox as X:.
  • The ChatGPT desktop app or Codex CLI installed and signed in. Codex CLI is a separate program. It runs in a terminal (on Windows, PowerShell). You install it apart from the ChatGPT desktop app. See OpenAI's Codex CLI guide.

ChatGPT desktop app

At the top left, the ChatGPT desktop app shows one of two modes (ways of working): ChatGPT or Codex. In ChatGPT mode, Chat and Work are at the top of the window. In Work and in Codex, you give ChatGPT a folder on your PC as a project. A folder on the RaiDrive drive works the same way:

  1. Click the mode name at the top left (it reads ChatGPT or Codex).
  2. Choose Codex. Or choose ChatGPT, then click Work at the top of the window.
  3. Click Choose project above the message box, then New project.
  4. Enter a project name and click Add under Source folders.

  5. In the folder picker (the window where you choose a folder), open This PC and choose a folder on the drive (for example X:\Exports). A network drive (the default), such as Dropbox (X:), is listed under Network locations. A Local Disk drive is listed under Devices and drives.

    Folder picker with Dropbox (X:) selected under Network locations

  6. Click Create project.

    Create project with the Exports folder and the notice for network and cloud drives

  7. Click Trust folder when ChatGPT asks whether to trust the folder.

  8. Ask for the work — for example "Analyze the yearly export results in this folder and make a PowerPoint presentation. Save it here as a .pptx file, and don't leave any other new files in this folder."

  9. If ChatGPT asks before a command, click Allow once.

    ChatGPT with the presentation it saved in the Exports folder on the drive

In step 4, the button reads Add before the first folder and Add folder after it. You do not need to add a second folder. For a network drive, ChatGPT shows a notice that ChatGPT may be slower in this folder. Files on network or cloud drives can take longer to read and save. ChatGPT asks before each command when the permission setting below the message box is Ask for approval. ChatGPT works for a few minutes. It saves the presentation in the folder and shows it next to the chat.

Codex CLI

  1. Open PowerShell — search for "PowerShell" in the Start menu.

  2. Type the two lines below, and press Enter after each. The first line (cd) moves to the folder on the drive — replace X:\Exports with your folder. The second starts Codex CLI:

    cd X:\Exports
codex

  3. The first time you start Codex CLI in a folder, it asks whether you trust that folder. Answer that you trust it.

  4. Ask for the work — for example "Analyze the yearly export results in this folder and make a PowerPoint presentation. Save it here as a .pptx file, and don't leave any other new files in this folder."

Codex CLI reads the files and writes its changes there. By default it writes only inside the folder you started it in. On a RaiDrive drive, that folder is a folder on your storage. Codex CLI asks before it writes outside that folder.

In this recording Codex reads the four yearly export workbooks in X:\Exports and saves a PowerPoint presentation in the same folder.

The first slide of the presentation Codex CLI saved:

First slide of the presentation Codex CLI made from the yearly export workbooks

Help from OpenAI

Next steps