Feature request: Built-in clipboard viewer for macOS/Windows

Resolved 💬 1 comment Opened Apr 20, 2026 by Minnanthu Closed May 27, 2026

Summary

Claude Code should have a built-in ability to read clipboard contents (images, text, files, HTML, etc.) so users can easily share screenshots and other copied content without saving to a file first.

Motivation

Currently, there's no straightforward way to share a clipboard image (e.g., from macOS Shift+Cmd+4 configured to clipboard-only) with Claude Code. Users must either:

  • Save the screenshot to a file manually, then reference it
  • Build a custom skill to extract clipboard contents via osascript (macOS) or equivalent

This is a common workflow - users frequently want to show Claude a screenshot of an error, a UI, a browser page, or other visual context. A built-in clipboard viewer would significantly lower the friction.

Proposed Solution

Add a built-in /clipboard command (or equivalent) that:

  1. Detects the clipboard content type (image, text, file reference, HTML, etc.)
  2. Extracts and displays the content accordingly:
  • Image: Save to temp file and display inline
  • Text: Display directly
  • File reference: Show file path (and optionally read the file)
  • HTML: Convert and display as text

Platform Support

  • macOS: osascript + clipboard info / pbpaste
  • Windows: PowerShell Get-Clipboard
  • Linux: xclip / xsel / wl-paste

Workaround

I've created a user-scoped custom skill (~/.claude/skills/clipboard/SKILL.md) that handles this for macOS, but this seems like a universally useful feature that would benefit all users out of the box.

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