If you’ve recently installed the ChatGPT add-on for Google Sheets on your Mac, iPad, or iPhone, you may have run into a problem that’s now being widely discussed: the extension appears to transmit the contents of entire workbooks — not just the cells you ask it to process — to third-party servers. Reports from users in the Apple Support Community, along with a heavily upvoted technical thread, describe the add-on requesting broad OAuth scopes that allow it to read every spreadsheet in your Google Drive, and then quietly uploading workbook data during routine prompts.
This is a real and reproducible issue, and it affects anyone using Google Sheets through Safari, Chrome, or the Google Sheets iOS app on an Apple device where the add-on has been authorised. Below is a practical guide to identifying what the extension is doing, removing its access, and hardening your account so this doesn’t happen again.
What Causes This Issue
The root cause is the permission model used by Google Workspace add-ons. When you install the ChatGPT add-on, it requests OAuth scopes that go well beyond what most users assume. Rather than reading only the active selection or the current sheet, the extension typically asks for permission to “see, edit, create, and delete all your Google Sheets spreadsheets.” Once granted, that consent persists across every workbook you open, on every Apple device signed into the same Google account.
There are three behaviours driving the exfiltration concern:
- The add-on reads cell ranges far beyond the prompt context, sometimes pulling entire sheets to build “context” for the language model.
- Data is sent to an external inference endpoint operated by the add-on’s developer, not by Google or Apple.
- There is no on-device indication — no Safari permission prompt, no iOS privacy nutrition label — because the data flow happens inside Google’s web infrastructure, bypassing the protections macOS and iOS normally apply to native apps.
Users in the Apple Support Community have noted that even after uninstalling the add-on from Sheets, the underlying OAuth grant remains active in their Google account until it is manually revoked. That’s the single most important detail in this whole situation.
Step-by-Step Fixes
The thread on the public discussion board did not reach a single accepted solution, but the consensus among technically experienced commenters is clear: revoke the OAuth grant first, then audit, then harden. Follow these steps in order.
- Revoke the add-on’s OAuth access immediately. On your Mac, open Safari and go to your Google Account’s security page. Choose “Third-party apps with account access,” find the ChatGPT for Sheets entry, and select “Remove Access.” This is the only action that actually severs the connection. Uninstalling from within Sheets alone does not.
- Uninstall the add-on from Google Sheets. Open any spreadsheet, click Extensions, then Add-ons, then Manage add-ons. Locate the ChatGPT extension and choose Uninstall. Repeat this on every Google account you use.
- Sign out and back into Google on all Apple devices. On iPhone and iPad, open the Google Sheets app, tap your profile picture, and remove the account. On macOS, clear the Google session in Safari by going to Settings, Privacy, Manage Website Data, and removing google.com entries.
- Check the Google Account activity log. Visit myaccount.google.com and review recent security events. Look for unfamiliar IP addresses or API access from regions you don’t recognise. Any suspicious entries should be reported via Google’s security review flow.
- Rotate sensitive data. If your workbooks contained API keys, passwords, client lists, or financial figures, treat them as compromised. Rotate the credentials and notify anyone whose information may have been exposed.
- Enable Advanced Protection or, at minimum, two-factor authentication. This won’t stop a previously authorised add-on from reading data, but it prevents future installs from being approved without an additional verification step.
Additional Solutions
Beyond the immediate clean-up, there are several account-level and device-level changes worth making on your Apple hardware.
On macOS Sequoia and later, use Safari Profiles to separate your work Google account from any account where you experiment with AI extensions. Profiles isolate cookies, extensions, and history, so a rogue add-on installed in one profile cannot reach data in another.
If you manage a team, consider moving to a Google Workspace tier that supports admin-approved Marketplace apps. An administrator can whitelist specific add-ons and block all others, which removes the temptation for individual users to install convenience tools that overreach on permissions.
For users who genuinely want AI assistance inside spreadsheets, prefer first-party options. Apple Intelligence’s writing tools, available in macOS 15.2 and later, can summarise or rewrite selected text without sending workbook contents to a third party. Google’s own Gemini integration in Workspace also keeps data inside the Google trust boundary rather than routing it through an external developer.
Finally, install a network monitoring tool such as Little Snitch or LuLu on your Mac. These show outbound connections in real time, so you can see exactly which domains a browser tab is contacting while you work in Sheets. Several users in the Apple Support Community used exactly this method to confirm the add-on was reaching servers unrelated to Google or to the prompt they had entered.
When to Contact Apple Support
Apple Support cannot directly remove a Google add-on or revoke an OAuth grant — that authority sits entirely within your Google account. However, you should contact Apple Support if you notice unexpected behaviour on the device itself: unfamiliar configuration profiles, unexplained iCloud Keychain entries, or Safari extensions you did not install. Apple Support can help you audit installed profiles, reset Safari, and verify your Apple Account has not been compromised in a related incident. If you used the same password for your Apple Account and Google account, change the Apple Account password as a precaution and review your trusted devices list in Settings.
FAQ
Does uninstalling the add-on from Sheets stop the data leak? No. Uninstalling removes the user interface, but the OAuth token granting access to your spreadsheets remains valid until you revoke it from your Google Account security page.
Is my data also at risk on iPhone and iPad? Yes, if the same Google account is signed in. The exfiltration happens at the account level, not the device level, so every Apple device using that account is affected.
Can Safari’s privacy features block this? Intelligent Tracking Prevention and Private Relay protect against cross-site tracking and IP exposure, but they cannot stop an add-on you have explicitly authorised from reading data inside Google’s own services.
Should I report this to Apple? Apple’s security team accepts reports through its product security page, but because the issue originates with a third-party Google Workspace add-on, the more effective channel is Google’s Marketplace abuse report and your account’s security review.
Is it safe to use AI tools in Sheets at all? Yes, provided you choose tools with transparent data handling, request only the minimum scope, and review permissions every few months. Treat any add-on that asks to access “all your spreadsheets” as a red flag worth investigating before approval.
