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Reimplement visible context/token usage indicator in Codex Desktop App #23591
Description
What version of the Codex App are you using (From “About Codex” dialog)?
26.513.40821
What subscription do you have?
Plus
What platform is your computer?
Windows 10 64
What issue are you seeing?
Title: Reimplement visible context/token usage indicator in Codex Desktop App
I’d like to request that Codex Desktop officially restore or re-add a visible context/token usage indicator on mouse-over.
The current desktop app experience makes it difficult to understand how much context is being used, when compaction is likely, and whether a long-running session is approaching a practical context limit. This information is operationally important for coding sessions, especially when working with large repos, long investigations, multi-agent work, or expensive/high-context models.
Codex already appears to track related information internally, including token usage, context window metadata, rate-limit state, and compaction events. The terminal/TUI and local state/telemetry surfaces expose parts of this indirectly, but the desktop app does not provide this anymore when hovering over the usage symnbol.
Requested behavior:
- Show current context/token usage in the Codex Desktop UI.
- Show remaining context or percentage of effective context window used.
- Show when auto-compaction is approaching or has happened.
- Ideally distinguish current-turn/context usage from cumulative thread token usage.
- Make the indicator visible by default or available via a settings toggle.
Why this matters:
- Users need to know when a thread is getting risky before context is lost or summarized.
- Hidden usage makes the app feel less trustworthy, especially for long professional coding sessions.
- It helps users decide when to compact, fork, start a new thread, reduce pasted context, or switch models.
- It aligns the desktop app with the level of observability serious users expect from Codex.
This should be implemented officially in the desktop UI rather than requiring users to inspect local SQLite state, app-server events, telemetry, or terminal-only status lines.
What steps can reproduce the bug?
Feedback ID: 019e42d6-0d47-7e12-bb3d-19af3a966aad
What is the expected behavior?
No response
Additional information
This seemingly intentional regression does not exactly instill high confidence in company transparency. :/
Activity
github-actions commentedon May 20, 2026
Potential duplicates detected. Please review them and close your issue if it is a duplicate.
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NN1985 commentedon May 21, 2026
Please restore this missing indicator!
SergeNS-mne commentedon May 22, 2026
We can confirm this issue also affects Codex Desktop App 26.519.31651 on macOS.
After updating today, May 22, 2026, the per-session context/token usage indicator disappeared from the composer/status area. It was visible before this update.
This makes it difficult to monitor current-session context/token usage and compaction risk. Please restore or fix this UI regression.
withTheHidden commentedon May 23, 2026
Codex is chasing that "everything app" dream too—bloated and unfocused.
Drop the coding
Drop their loyal users
gomisha commentedon May 25, 2026
Once activated, the
/statuspanel keeps displaying the context window at all times for new and existing threads, not just on demand.I activate it by typing
/statusand then selecting theStatus Toggle Context Usageoverlay popup.Once it's activated, it stays on all the time for the current and future threads:
Purricane commentedon May 29, 2026
Now that side indicator is gone and I have to keep this huge box up as of the update a few minutes ago, thanks guys...
etraut-openai commentedon May 29, 2026
We've added a setting that allows you to re-enable the persistent context window ("donut") indicator beneath the composer box. We received feedback that this indicator was important for some users' workflows, and they preferred having it in its previous location. You can enable it by going to the General panel in the Settings.