Keyboard navigation between user messages in chat conversation (jump to previous/next prompt)

Preflight Checklist

• [x] I have searched existing requests and this feature hasn't been requested yet
• [x] This is a single feature request (not multiple features)

Problem Statement

In the Claude chat interface (desktop app, web, Cowork), there is no way to quickly jump
between your own messages within a conversation. When responses are long and a session has
many back-and-forth exchanges, finding a specific earlier exchange requires slow manual
scrolling — and the longer the conversation, the worse it gets.

What's needed is a way to navigate the conversation by jumping the view to the previous (or
next) user message, so you can see your prompt and the assistant's response to it together
in context. Think "jump to previous heading" in a document editor, but for user turns in a
conversation.

Note: the Claude desktop app previously implemented an up/down arrow feature for cycling
previous inputs into the message box (shell-history style). That feature has since been
removed, presumably because it wasn't the right solution — without the assistant's responses
visible, prompt-only history navigation has limited value. The feature requested here is
different: it's about navigating the rendered conversation itself, not cycling text into the
input field.

Proposed Solution

Add a keyboard shortcut (e.g., Alt+Up / Alt+Down, or Ctrl+Up / Ctrl+Down) that scrolls the
conversation view to the previous or next user message, bringing that message and its
assistant response into view.

A supplementary UI option (e.g., small prev/next arrows anchored in the interface) could
serve users who prefer not to use keyboard shortcuts, but the keyboard shortcut is the
primary request.

This should apply to the current conversation in view. Cross-session or cross-conversation
navigation is out of scope.

Alternative Solutions

Current workaround: manually scroll up through potentially many screens of assistant output
to find an earlier exchange. No keyboard shortcut or navigation control exists today.

The previously-shipped up/down arrow input history feature (now removed from cowork) cycled prior prompts
into the input box. While related in spirit, it did not solve the navigation problem because
it showed prompts without the responses, making it hard to orient yourself in the
conversation. Its removal suggests the team reached the same conclusion.

Priority

Medium - Would be very helpful

Feature Category

Other

Use Case Example

A user has a long working session — 20+ exchanges, with detailed assistant responses. They
remember that earlier in the conversation they asked about a specific topic and want to
revisit both the question and the answer. Currently, they must scroll up through many screens
of output to find it. With jump-to-previous-message navigation, they press a shortcut a few
times and land directly on the exchange they're looking for.

This is especially useful when the assistant is verbose — verbose responses push earlier
user messages further away, making the navigation problem worse over time.

Additional Context

This feature would benefit all Claude chat surfaces: the desktop app (Cowork), the web
interface (claude.ai), and mobile. Long-session users on all three surfaces face the same
scrolling problem.

Note on the previously-removed input-box history feature: the CLI version of this (up arrow
to cycle prompt history in the terminal) is well-suited to the coding use case, where "redo
this command" is a common pattern. In the chat interface, however, what users more often
need is orientation — finding where a topic was discussed — which requires seeing the
response alongside the prompt. The removed feature solved the wrong problem for chat users.

Claude Code version: 2.1.181 | Platform: macOS, Anthropic API