Does a Dot’s cloud computer keep your files after you disconnect the apps you linked?

Yes. Disconnecting an app stops new access, and it leaves what the Dot already took. OpenAI’s getting-started page says disconnecting does not delete information the Dot has already obtained from that app, and that deleting the Dot is how you delete that information. The privacy FAQ says the same thing in slightly different words: disconnecting a service linked through a plugin stops new access and does not delete information the Dot has already built into its context. The cloud computer’s own files are a further store. The same FAQ says files, Codex threads, and ChatGPT conversations the Dot created are stored separately, and that deleting the Dot does not delete those files.

Unplugging Gmail is not a wipe of the computer. It is the end of that connection. Anything already copied into context, memory, or a file on the Dot’s side is still there until you deal with that store by name.

What does disconnect actually turn off?

Future reads and future actions through that account. The getting-started page is the short version, aimed at the Dot: disconnect, and the information already obtained remains. The ChatGPT apps article is the account-wide version: disconnecting stops future access through that account, and it does not automatically delete existing or archived conversations, saved files, your Memory summary, or other saved memories. Other connected accounts, and an administrator-managed workspace connection, can remain. Disconnecting the last account can remove some plugins from the installed list. Uninstalling a plugin can disconnect every account that plugin was using. Read the warning before you confirm it.

Plugin permissions are shared. The privacy FAQ says they apply across Dots, ChatGPT, ChatGPT Work, and Codex. Disconnecting on the Dot’s plugin screen is the same settings surface as ChatGPT’s. You are not turning off a private pipe that only the Dot used, then leaving ChatGPT’s copy behind as a surprise. You are turning off a connection the FAQ already told you is shared. If ChatGPT itself still has the app, the Dot still has it, within the permissions you set. If you disconnect it, both lose new access. Neither loses the old context by that click.

Proactive research is how material gets into that context without a fresh question from you. The announcement says that when you are not in the thread, the Dot looks through apps you already connected, using tools that are restricted to read-only. Those tools cannot send, change app content, or control the browser or computer. They can still read. The getting-started page says the Dot can review connected information and form memories from it even when you did not ask about it. Disconnect stops the next look. It does not un-form the memory.

Which store is the cloud computer, and which is the context?

They are not the same sentence in the docs, so I am not going to pretend they are the same bucket. The Dot has its own cloud computer: its own files, its own software, its own browser sessions. The computers guidance says that computer keeps state between periods of use, and that cloud work can continue while your devices are off. Context, in the privacy FAQ, is what the Dot retains from conversations and plugins for as long as you keep the Dot. You delete that context by deleting the Dot. You cannot, today, view or delete an individual Dot memory, including a specific detail that entered from a plugin. Turning off Memory in ChatGPT stops sharing into ChatGPT Memory. It does not delete information the Dot has already received. ChatGPT memories from your other conversations stay, and you manage those in ChatGPT’s own memory controls.

Files the Dot created are called out as separate again. Deleting the Dot deletes the Dot’s own context. It does not delete files, Codex threads, and ChatGPT conversations the Dot created, because those are stored separately. I have not found a help page that says the disconnect button empties the cloud computer, and I have not found one that says Reset formats that disk. Reset, on the getting-started page, deletes the Dot, including its conversations, saved memories, and scheduled tasks. You open the Dot’s profile, open the ••• menu, choose Reset, read the notice, and confirm or cancel. Afterward you are in a new ChatGPT chat, and you create a new Dot in the desktop app or on desktop web. The learn page’s delete note adds what that does not do: it does not undo changes already made in connected apps, and it does not recall messages already delivered.

If you needed the cloud disk gone, the honest status is that the pages I read do not give you a button labeled as that. They give you disconnect, which keeps obtained information, and delete or reset, which removes the Dot’s context and scheduled tasks and leaves separately stored files. Look at the confirmation notice on your account before you trust a summary, including this one. If the notice lists the cloud computer, believe the notice.

What about a file the Dot saved for a second job?

It is on the one computer you have. A second Dot, with its own computer, is described as a future option. The primary Dot is what Pro and Business Premium include now. A second job on that Dot shares its files. Disconnecting the app you used for the first job does not move those files onto a private disk the second job cannot open. A spreadsheet the Dot downloaded, a note it wrote, a browser download sitting on that computer: none of those are deleted by a plugin toggle, on any page I found.

The browser session is the same kind of leftover, with a gap in the docs I should not paper over. The computer is described as having its own browser sessions, and a session remains until you sign out or the site expires it. I did not find a line that says disconnecting the Gmail plugin signs that browser out of Gmail. I also did not find a line that says the session survives disconnect. If a login in the cloud browser matters, open the computer and sign out. Do not assume the plugin switch did it. Saved logins are a third control. Reusing a saved login requires your confirmation, and a custom rule cannot remove that confirmation. Disconnect is still the right first step. Sign-out is the one that matches a browser.

What stays in the apps you disconnected?

Whatever the Dot already changed there. A sent email, a edited record, a file it wrote into a connected drive: those live in the other service. Deleting the Dot does not undo them. The provider’s own trash and retention rules are the ones that apply. ChatGPT’s disconnect article says to review saved files and the provider’s account controls separately, and it points at a data-sharing page for retention. I am not going to invent a holding period.

Your laptop is yet another disk. Local computer access starts off. Allow access is what connects it. Revoke access stops the Dot from using that machine. Revoke is not disconnect, and disconnect is not revoke. A file the Dot wrote on your computer while access was on is a normal file on your disk after you revoke. The cloud computer does not reach over and delete it. The ChatGPT app had to be open for that local work to happen. Closing the app stops new local work. It does not roll back the files.

What should you do if the app should never have been connected?

Disconnect it, then delete what the docs actually name. Disconnect in Settings, under Apps or Plugins, depending on which label your account shows. If Connected accounts is there, use that account’s ••• menu. Then treat the Dot’s context as still full. If the contents matter, reset or delete the Dot and read the notice. Then look for the files the FAQ says are stored separately: ChatGPT conversations the Dot created, Codex threads, and files in Library or whatever file list your account shows. The FAQ says you cannot pick individual Dot memories out. Reset is the blunt tool for context. It is not, on the pages I read, a receipt that every copy is gone.

Leave send, delete, and money on a human step while any of this is still connected. A custom rule can say not to send mail. It cannot override the built-in takeover for a password change or a money transfer, and it cannot grant the app back after you disconnected it. The damage from a connected app is usually a copy, not a mystery process that keeps the pipe open. The copy is the part disconnect does not touch.

So the cloud computer keeps the work. Disconnect keeps the Dot from going back for more. Delete or reset clears the Dot’s context and its scheduled tasks, leaves the changes it already made in other apps, and, by the privacy FAQ’s own split, leaves files stored apart from the Dot. If you need a copy gone, name the store and delete that. The plugin switch will not do it for you.