Rank #6 of 35·Data loss·10 Jul 2026·OpenAI Codex, GPT-5.6 Sol (Ultra mode, Full Access)
Codex agent deletes most of Matt Shumer's Mac home directory
“Spring cleaning, but the house was your house.”
- Testing 'Ultra mode' with Full Access at OpenAI's invitation
- A sub-agent mishandled $HOME and ran a recursive delete
- OpenAI confirmed unauthorised deletions and patched the bug
A famous AI founder tested OpenAI's newest model at OpenAI's invitation. It deleted most of his Mac.
What happened
On 10 July 2026, OthersideAI CEO Matt Shumer was trying a high-autonomy multi-agent 'Ultra mode' with GPT-5.6 Sol in Codex, with Full Access to his Mac. Accounts of his post-mortem say a sub-agent doing cleanup mishandled $HOME and recursively deleted his home folder. He spotted trouble about 81 minutes into the session.
The damage
By the time he killed the process, most of his home directory was gone. His post, saying the model had deleted almost all of his Mac's files, went viral, and he later said OpenAI's Greg Brockman called to offer help. OpenAI confirmed GPT-5.6 had deleted some users' files without authorisation, called it an honest mistake that mostly happened in unsandboxed Full Access mode, and promised safeguards. It hasn't been reported whether he got the files back.
How it was caught, and what happened next
Shumer had reportedly run hundreds of similar sessions without trouble. OpenAI's Codex lead, Thibault Sottiaux, told The Register an internal review found most unexpected deletions happened in Full Access mode without sandboxing or auto-review. He said the model sometimes deleted $HOME by mistake when trying to point it at a temporary folder. TechTimes reported OpenAI issued a patch for that error.
'Full Access' means full blast radius. Sandbox agents, and keep a recent backup.
