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NOPE
Low reported severity Media Coverage

OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol coding agent, run in a high-autonomy mode with full access, deleted most of the Mac home directory of AI entrepreneur Matt Shumer (10 July 2026)

On 10 July 2026 Matt Shumer, founder and chief executive of the AI start-up OthersideAI, posted on X that OpenAI's newly released GPT-5.6 Sol "just accidentally deleted almost ALL of my Mac’s files". Accounts of his post-mortem say he was testing a high-autonomy multi-agent "Ultra mode" at OpenAI's invitation, with the Codex agent given Full Access to his machine; during a cleanup task a sub-agent expanded $HOME incorrectly and ran a recursive delete of his home directory, he noticed a problem about 81 minutes into the session, and by the time he stopped the process most of its contents were gone. Three days later he wrote that the deletion "absolutely sucked" and that OpenAI staff, including Greg Brockman, had contacted him to help. OpenAI confirmed, as reported by The Register, that GPT-5.6 had deleted users' files without authorisation, describing it as an "honest mistake" that usually occurred in Full-Access mode without sandboxing, and said it was adding safeguards. Whether the files were recovered is not reported.

AI system
Codex coding agent
OpenAI
Occurred
10 Jul 2026
Reported
10 July 2026
Event location
Unknown
What the AI did
Acted on the person’s behalf
Reported harm
Property Loss
Whose AI use
Their own AI use
Setting
Work · Everyday life
Evidence
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 6 sources, 2 underlying accounts
4 claims: 4 reported. 3 open questions
People reported harmed
1 person

AI system as recorded: GPT-5.6 Sol running as the Codex coding agent in "Ultra mode" (multiple sub-agents) with Full Access to the user's Mac

What Happened

Shumer's first post (10 July 2026, 19:03 UTC) reads "GPT-5.6-Sol just accidentally deleted almost ALL of my Mac’s files." A technical blog summarising the post-mortems of this and a second deletion says a sub-agent on a cleanup task expanded $HOME incorrectly and ran rm -rf on his home directory; that he was testing Ultra mode, a high-autonomy multi-agent configuration, at OpenAI's invitation; and that he caught the process mid-run after material deletion had occurred. TechTimes, citing his account, says he had granted the local agent Full Access, noticed something was wrong 1 hour 21 minutes into the session, and found most of his home directory's contents gone when he killed the process; it quotes a follow-up post ("I'm so angry") and reports that he had run hundreds of similar sessions without incident. On 13 July he posted that "GPT-5.6 deleted my Mac’s home directory. It absolutely sucked," and thanked OpenAI staff, saying Greg Brockman had called him and offered help. The Register reports OpenAI's Codex engineering lead, Thibault Sottiaux, saying an internal inquiry found that unexpected deletions usually happened in Full-Access mode without sandboxing or Auto-review, and that the model "mistakenly deletes $HOME" when trying to override the variable to define a temporary directory. TechTimes reported that he was using agents to try to recover the files; the outcome is not reported.

Reported harm

Most of the contents of Shumer's Mac home directory were deleted by the GPT-5.6 Sol agent during a cleanup task, according to his own posts and accounts of his post-mortem; OpenAI confirmed that the model had deleted users' files without authorisation. Recovery is not reported.

Outcome

Unknown

Covered by TechCrunch, The Register and TechTimes. OpenAI's Codex lead said an internal inquiry had examined file-deletion claims and that the company was updating the developer message, steering users to safer permission modes and adding harness safeguards; TechTimes reports that OpenAI issued a patch for the $HOME error.

What remains unknown

  • Whether the deleted files were recovered.
  • Exactly what data was lost and whether any belonged to other people.
  • Whether OpenAI's inquiry examined this specific session.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: supported. Shumer attributes the deletion to GPT-5.6 Sol in his own posts; OpenAI confirmed, as reported by The Register, that the model had deleted users' files without authorisation and described the $HOME error, without naming his case.

4 claims: 4 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported On 10 July 2026 Matt Shumer, founder and chief executive of the AI start-up OthersideAI, posted on X that OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol had just accidentally deleted almost all of the files on his Mac; three days later he wrote that GPT-5.6 had deleted his Mac's home directory and that it "absolutely sucked".

Causal attribution. Shumer's own posts; TechCrunch relays them.

  • x.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'GPT-5.6-Sol just accidentally deleted almost ALL of my Mac’s files.'
  • x.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'Three days ago, GPT-5.6 deleted my Mac’s home directory.'; 'It absolutely sucked.'
  • techcrunch.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'wrote Matt Shumer, the founder and CEO of AI startup OthersideAI, maker of HyperWrite, in a now viral post on X.'
Reported According to accounts of Shumer's post-mortem, he was testing a high-autonomy multi-agent "Ultra mode" at OpenAI's invitation with the agent given Full Access to his machine; during a cleanup task a sub-agent expanded $HOME incorrectly and ran a recursive delete of his home directory, he noticed a problem about 81 minutes into the session, and by the time he stopped the process most of the directory's contents were gone.

Causal attribution. Shumer's account as summarised by a technical blog and TechTimes; the original post-mortem was not read.

  • paddo.dev(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'a sub-agent on a cleanup task expanded $HOME incorrectly and ran rm -rf /Users/mattsdevbox. He was testing Ultra mode, a high-autonomy multi-agent configuration, at OpenAI’s invitation. He caught the process mid-run; material deletion had already occurred.'
  • techtimes.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'The OpenAI team reached out privately and asked him to test "Ultra mode"'; 'Shumer accepted and granted the local agent Full Access to his machine.'; 'One hour and twenty-one minutes into the session, he noticed something was wrong. By the time he killed the process, most of his home directory's contents were gone.'
Reported OpenAI confirmed that GPT-5.6 had deleted users' files without authorisation; its Codex engineering lead said an internal inquiry found the model usually ran in Full-Access mode without sandboxing when this happened and that the model "mistakenly deletes $HOME" when trying to override the variable to define a temporary directory.

Causal attribution. OpenAI's statement as reported by The Register; it is general and does not name Shumer's case.

  • theregister.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'OpenAI has confirmed reports that GPT-5.6 has deleted users' files without authorization but insists these rare erasures represent an "honest mistake."'; 'an internal inquiry into file deletion claims found that when GPT-5.6 unexpectedly deleted files, the model is usually configured in Full-Access mode'; '"The model attempts to override the $HOME env var to define a temporary directory," said Sottiaux. "The model makes an honest mistake and mistakenly deletes $HOME instead."'
Reported Shumer said OpenAI staff reached out and that Greg Brockman called him and offered help; TechTimes reported that he was using agents to try to recover the files, and no report inspected says whether they were recovered.

Causal attribution. Shumer's post and TechTimes.

  • x.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'But so many OpenAI folks reached out, and @gdb called me and offered to do anything he could to help.'
  • techtimes.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'As of this writing, Shumer is using agents to attempt recovery of the deleted files.'

Sources

6 sources inspected, from 2 underlying accounts. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Shumer's X post of 10 July 2026 (19:03 UTC), read on 2026-09-29 as JSON through the api.fxtwitter.com mirror of the status; x.com itself was not fetched. Applies to s1.

Shumer's follow-up X post of 13 July 2026 (22:20 UTC), quoting s1; read through the api.fxtwitter.com mirror on 2026-09-29. Applies to s2.

Full body read by curl on 2026-09-29. For the deletion itself TechCrunch relays Shumer's X post and is grouped with it. Applies to s3.

Full body read by curl on 2026-09-29. Carries a statement attributed to Thibault Sottiaux, OpenAI engineering lead for Codex, about the company's inquiry; the statement itself was not read at its origin. Applies to s4.

Full body read by curl on 2026-09-29. Its incident narrative is attributed to Shumer's account and posts, so it is grouped with them. Applies to s5.

Personal technical blog read by curl on 2026-09-29; it summarises the victims' own post-mortems, which were not read at their origin. Applies to s6.

Event countries: Unknown. Affected-person countries: Unknown. Court countries: Unknown.

No inspected source says where Shumer or his machine was located.

Reviewed for publication 2026-09-29: Published as a concrete first-person account of an AI coding agent deleting a user's files, with the developer's general confirmation of the behaviour. The mechanism rests on secondary summaries of the user's post-mortem.

People described

Matt Shumer, an AI entrepreneur and investor who publicised the deletion himself

People reported harmed in this case

1 person

1 AI participant · 0 other people harmed

Shumer, whose home directory was deleted (1 participant user). No other person is reported harmed.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Tags

#openai#gpt-5-6#codex#coding-agent#data-loss#file-deletion#first-person

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol coding agent, run in a high-autonomy mode with full access, deleted most of the Mac home directory of AI entrepreneur Matt Shumer (10 July 2026). AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2026-gpt-5-6-sol-agent-deleted-shumer-mac-home-directory

BibTeX

@misc{2026_gpt_5_6_sol_agent_deleted_shumer_mac_home_directory,
  title = {OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol coding agent, run in a high-autonomy mode with full access, deleted most of the Mac home directory of AI entrepreneur Matt Shumer (10 July 2026)},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2026-gpt-5-6-sol-agent-deleted-shumer-mac-home-directory}
}

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