[BUG] Desktop (macOS): right-click "Copy" on selected text copies the entire message instead of the selection (still broken; #50386 was closed as stale, not fixed)

Resolved 💬 0 comments Opened Jul 14, 2026 by lashimao Closed Jul 14, 2026

Summary

In the Claude Code desktop app on macOS, selecting a portion of an assistant message and using right-click → Copy puts the entire message block / surrounding context on the clipboard instead of just the highlighted text. Cmd+C on a selection behaves the same way.

This is the same defect as #50386, which was closed by the stale bot without a fix. Duplicates #63228 and #53975 (Windows) were auto-closed pointing back to it, so the bug currently has no open tracking issue even though it still reproduces on the latest build. Related feature request for a proper "Copy selection" menu item: #61484.

Steps to reproduce

  1. Open any conversation in the desktop app
  2. Highlight a short span of text inside an assistant message (e.g. one sentence)
  3. Right-click the selection and choose Copy (or press Cmd+C)
  4. Paste anywhere

Expected

Only the highlighted text is copied — standard macOS behavior.

Actual

The clipboard contains the whole message (sometimes with surrounding context/formatting), not the selection. Partial quoting from assistant output is effectively impossible without dragging the selection to another app.

Environment

  • Claude desktop app 1.20186.7 (macOS)
  • macOS 26.4 (Darwin 25.4.0)

Notes

Please keep this one from being stale-closed again — it's a basic clipboard regression that blocks normal quoting workflows and has been reported at least four times (#50386, #63228, #53975, #61484).

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