Alt-V No image found in clipboard on Windows 11 despite image being present

Alt-V "No image found in clipboard" on Windows 11 despite image being present

Environment

• Claude Code version: 2.1.132 (latest as of 2026-05-07)
• OS: Windows 11 Enterprise 10.0.26100
• Shell: PowerShell
• Provider: AWS Bedrock (CLAUDE_CODE_USE_BEDROCK=1)
• Model: us.anthropic.claude-opus-4-6-v1
• Region: us-east-1

Description

Alt-V (image paste from clipboard) stopped working approximately one week ago. It reports "No image found in clipboard" even though the Windows clipboard definitively contains an image.

Steps to reproduce

1. Take a screenshot using Win+Shift+S (Windows Snipping Tool)
2. In Claude Code, press Alt-V to paste image
3. Message appears: "No image found in clipboard"

Proof the clipboard contains an image

Immediately after the failed Alt-V attempt, the following all confirm the image is present:

PowerShell Get-Clipboard:

PS> Get-Clipboard -Format Image
# Returns image with dimensions, pixel format, etc.

Clipboard format check:

PS> Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Windows.Forms
PS> [System.Windows.Forms.Clipboard]::ContainsImage()
True

PS> $d = [System.Windows.Forms.Clipboard]::GetDataObject()
PS> $d.GetFormats()
System.Drawing.Bitmap
Bitmap
PNG
CanUploadToCloudClipboard
CanIncludeInClipboardHistory

MS Paint: Ctrl-V pastes the image successfully.

Additional testing

• Tested with Win+Shift+S (Windows built-in snip) — same failure
• Tested with Bluetooth keyboard Shift+F5 screen grab — same failure
• Standard Bitmap and PNG clipboard formats are present
• Referencing image files by path works fine (Read tool can display them)

Expected behavior

Alt-V should detect the clipboard image and attach it to the message.

Workaround

Save screenshot to a file and reference the file path in the conversation.