[BUG] Desktop app: context-window usage no longer shown anywhere — ring and usage popover list only plan windows
Environment
Claude desktop app 2.37337.1 (Windows 11 Pro 26100), bundled Claude Code engine 2.1.295, Max 20x plan, Fable 5.1 with 1M context.
What happened
Until 2026-10-13 the footer ring showed context usage and its popover listed the context window next to the plan windows (the state after #91712 / #91075 were closed as completed on 2026-09-15).
Since 2026-10-14 context is gone from the UI entirely:
- the ring shows the weekly plan window (currently 85 %)
- clicking it opens the Usage popover with only: Session limit 9 %, Weekly 85 %, Weekly · Fable 69 %, Cloud session credits. No context row, no breakdown.
- nothing in Settings controls this (checked all Code tab settings).
The data exists: in the same session the app's own session-usage tool reports context at 26 % of 1M with the full category breakdown, and /context prints it. Only the display dropped it.
The Android app (same account, same moment, weekly at 86 %) still shows the context window as the first row of its usage sheet: "Kontextfenster 49 % verbraucht, 487.9k von 1M Tokens", then the session and weekly windows. So the readout exists on every other surface; only the desktop app's ring and popover dropped it.
Why it matters
Context fill is the one number that drives /compact and hand-off decisions mid-session. With it hidden, the only way to see it is to type /context every time. A warning about a high weekly window should not remove the context readout, and with extra usage enabled the weekly limit is not even blocking.
It coincided with my weekly window crossing ~85 %, so it may be a "plan warning takes over the widget" rule rather than a removal — either way the context row must stay in the popover.
Expected
- Usage popover always lists the context window (percent and tokens) next to the plan windows.
- Ring metric selectable by the user (context / 5-hour / weekly); any automatic override opt-in.
Related
#90708 (configurable footer, open), #91712 and #91075 (closed completed 2026-09-15, this is a regression of those), #102085 (same report today, no details).
7 Comments
+1, where TF is it.
Update: found where context went. The desktop app now has a separate usage bar at the top right that shows context used, but only while that panel is kept open. The footer ring and its popover no longer show context at all (see above). So the at-a-glance indicator was replaced by one that costs screen space and a click, which is what #102085 means by "not going to have the side bar open on a 1920x1080 monitor".
Ask unchanged: context back in the ring or its popover, so it is visible without keeping a panel open, and the ring metric selectable.
<img width="472" height="337" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/40934673-4e75-4869-ad31-9dd7af4b4fd8" />
Hi amigo. guess nothing to do with the usage, guess its just a stupid af bug or sth
Same here. Claude desktop 2.37337.1, [Windows 11 / macOS], Max plan.
Weekly usage at 65%, so it's not a high-weekly-limit takeover rule.
Context row missing from the Usage popover since the 13 Oct update.
Sidebar Group-by and alphabetical sort also gone.
Thank you very uch but this is a very backward move. Please revert Anthropic.
Until the context row comes back to the ring / popover, here is a workaround I put together: a small Claude Code mod that keeps one dim line directly above the prompt, in the desktop app and in the terminal:
It refreshes after every turn, costs no sidebar space, and needs no panel kept open.
contextis the session's context-window fill;session/weeklyare the plan windows; the last entries are the per-model weekly windows the account has.Repo: https://github.com/JiahaoXu10Arthur/context-band
Two ways to install:
``
/plugin install context-band --marketplace JiahaoXu10Arthur/context-band
claude plugin marketplace addandclaude plugin installfor you.Either way it is installed at user scope, so it loads in every later session, desktop ones included.
This is a stopgap, not a replacement for the built-in readout — the ask in this issue stands. If it is useful to you, a star helps others find it.
<img width="1698" height="322" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/36887dcc-bc0b-4f7f-b2e7-02f34d23c31c" />
Same on macOS 15 (Claude desktop 2.37337.1, Max plan, Opus 5.5 with 1M context). Since the 2026-10-14 update the usage ring popover shows only the 5-hour and weekly plan windows; the current session’s context fill is gone, although the app’s session tooling still reports it (~84k of 1M, 8 %). Please bring the context row back — in Desktop it was the only place to see when to /compact or start a fresh session.