Give Claude Visual Context by Pasting Images from Any Source
Claude Code can reason about visual context you paste directly into your prompt — you're not limited to screenshots. Anything you can copy to your clipboard works.
From a browser: Right-click any image on a webpage → Copy Image, then paste into Claude Code with the standard paste shortcut for your terminal.
From Slack or Teams: Hover over an image in a message → click the download icon or right-click → Copy → paste directly into Claude.
From a design tool: Figma, Sketch, and most design tools support Copy as PNG. Paste a component or screen directly into Claude for implementation guidance.
From a file on disk: Open the file in Preview → Cmd+A → Cmd+C, then paste into Claude. Or drag the image file into Finder, then use Preview to get it onto the clipboard.
From an existing screenshot: If you've already saved a screenshot to your desktop, open it in Preview, press Cmd+A to select all, then Cmd+C to copy it to the clipboard.
Once you have an image on your clipboard:
- iTerm2, Warp, Kitty: paste with
Cmd+V - Ghostty: paste with
Ctrl+V(Ghostty uses Linux terminal conventions)
Claude can reason about UI bugs, error dialogs, design mockups, database diagrams, terminal output, and anything else that's easier to show than describe. You don't need to convert the image to a file path — just paste and describe what you want Claude to do with it.
Any image you can see on your screen, you can paste into Claude — show rather than describe.
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When typing feels slow — describing a complex bug, explaining architecture, or thinking through a problem out loud — press Option+V to switch to voice input. Speak naturally and Claude Code transcribes your words into a prompt, so you can describe what you need at the speed of thought.
When Claude is heading down the wrong path — editing the wrong file, writing code you don't want, or giving a long explanation you don't need — press Escape to stop it immediately. You keep everything it did up to that point and can redirect with a new prompt.
Closed a session and realized you weren't done? Pass --continue (or -c) when launching Claude Code to pick up exactly where you left off — same context, same files, same conversation history — without re-explaining what you were working on.