How to Use Plugins On the ChatGPT iOS and Android Apps

Some inexperienced Plugin explorers out there say that you can't use ChatGPT plugins with the iOS and Android apps. Well, just because you official can't enable the feature inside ChatGPT doesn't mean you can't use plugins. Today I will share with you a little known trick that makes it easy to access any plugin directly on your phone.

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📱 Really? ChatGPT Has An App Now?

Maybe you have been living under a rock, or maybe you've just been off the grid for a while, or maybe you should consider signing up to a certain newsletter about ChatGPT so you don't miss these kind of game-changing news.

Back to the question – yes, OpenAI launched a dedicated ChatGPT app in May (which in these AI times seems like a bit of an eternity ago). Also, they recently launched their ChatGPT app for Android users, so now pretty much everyone who owns a smartphone should be able to download and ask AI about the meaning of our existence here on earth (until they figure out more productive questions to ask it).

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Just head over to your preferred app store, type in ChatGPT and click install, and you're off to the races with a fresh AI assistant in your pocket.

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🤦🏻 Why Can't I Find ChatGPT Plugins on the iOS and Android Apps?

On desktop you can find and enable ChatGPT plugins under beta features, and one could fantasise that OpenAI would have made this just as easy on mobile devices. Unfortunately, that's not the case. The comparable menu in the app is called "new features" and if you're looking for plugins in there you're going to be disappointed.

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Here's what meets you:

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So if we can't enable plugins inside the settings, then how in the AI are we going to use them with the app? Patience, young plugin exploring grasshopper, for the way shall be revealed in a second.

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💡The solution: Shareable Chat Links

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The way in which you can use plugins for ChatGPT is by installing and enabling the plugin on desktop, then creating a shareable link from the chat, and opening that same link on your phone.

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We'll use the Imagesearch plugin to illustrate this example.

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First activate the plugin, and write something (yes, whatever you want, it doesn't really matter for this to work) into the chat:

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Then, you want to click on the share chat icon in the upper right corner, and click the "copy link" button:

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All right, now you just need to find a way to open this link on your phone. I use iOS so just save it in a note on my Mac, then access it through the synced Notes app on my iPhone.

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Click on the link on your phone, and the ChatGPT app should open a Shared conversation:

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Looks like it's working! But let's confirm with an actual prompt to the plugin, and see if really works:

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Cats everywhere! Beautiful – this means the plugin worked!

The thing is, this process is pretty tedious. Using this method – unless I was in an urgent situation where I needed to search for cat images through ChatGPT (haven't we all been there, though?) – there's little reason for me to not just wait until I'm in front of your desktop to use plugins.

🔥 Let's Make It Easy!

I'm going to let you in on a plugin wizard ninja hack that will make this process much easier than using the previous method manually. It's called whatplugin.ai, and it's right here on this site! On the home page of whatplugin you will find a neatly categorised, searchable list of ALL ChatGPT plugins. And the best part? They all have a dedicated shareable link with the plugin already activated. This means you can access plugins directly from your ChatGPT app using this very website!

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See the "Try it" buttons in the screenshot below. Click on it and if you have the ChatGPT app installed on your device, it will ask you if you want to "Open in ChatGPT". Click Open.

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Voila! It automatically opens a shared chat with the plugin activated:

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This works on desktops, tablets, phones, microwaves (ok, maybe not that)!

I hope you enjoyed this read and are excited about using plugins on your ChatGPT app for iOS and Android.