Feature Request: Shift+Enter for newlines in message input
Status Closed — not planned
Maintainer reply None cached
Workaround ✓ Mentioned in description ↑
Activity 14 comments · opened Nov 27, 2025 · closed Mar 9, 2026
Feature Request
Current Behavior:
Pressing Shift+Enter immediately submits the partially typed message, the same as pressing Enter alone.
Desired Behavior:
Shift+Enter should insert a newline/blank line in the message, allowing users to compose multi-line messages before submitting with Enter.
Rationale:
- This matches the standard behavior of most chat interfaces (Slack, Discord, Teams, VS Code chat, etc.)
- Multi-line messages are useful for:
- Providing structured input with clear separation
- Pasting code snippets with context
- Writing prompts that benefit from paragraph breaks
- Better readability for complex requests
Current Workarounds:
- Typing in an external editor and pasting
- Using piped input from files
These workarounds are functional but interrupt the interactive flow of the CLI.
Suggested Implementation:
- Shift+Enter: Insert newline
- Enter: Submit message
- (Optional) Ctrl+Enter as alternative submit for consistency with some editors
Thank you for considering this enhancement!
14 Comments
<img width="1232" height="342" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/5c9ce0aa-6dbf-488f-86e9-9ef5070367a7" />
It says that feature already exist, but it seems it doesn't work properly
Can confirm this works in iTerm2 on mac. But not in alacritty or windows terminal with WSL on windows
Shift+Enter does not exist in Claude Code
native (2.0.60)on Linux.<img width="1185" height="237" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/3ccc97ed-9aba-471f-a80c-48f89dda299d" />
For reference, there were requests for a configurable newline shortcut, but got auto-closed https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/2335
Other issues are about to be auto-closed https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/1758, or are on their way to be auto-closed in a near future https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/5064
Ok
On Sun, Dec 7, 2025 at 7:54 AM marcindulak @.***> wrote:
This is driving me crazy and makes Claude Code much less usable than it should be
You might be able to ask Claude to investigate this and update your terminal's configuration if there's a solution for you down that path.
I already did. After a bit of back-and-forth, it told me that this isn't supported and I should file an issue on Github, which is how I got here.
Control-J works as an alternative. I also haven't been able to use Shift-Enter in VS code, even after running "/terminal-setup"
Version 2.1.0 enabled Shift+Enter on several terminal types https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/blob/5aac2b1b6aa23b65cd146b7eac8af30bc858d6eb/CHANGELOG.md?plain=1#L9
This change may or may not get reverted, since some people on MacOS got used to Option+Enter https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/16764
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