Claude Desktop "Open" attach picks wrong file content despite showing correct filename in confirmation dialog
Environment:
- Windows 11 Home, build 10.0.26200
- Claude Desktop (version: check Settings > About)
- Reproduced across a full shutdown/reboot, not a transient state issue
Description:
Right-clicking Open or double-clicking a .csv file in File Explorer launches Claude Desktop and shows a correct "Attach '<filename>' to this session?" confirmation dialog naming the actual file clicked. But the content that lands in the chat after clicking Attach is from a different, unrelated file, not the one named in the dialog or the one clicked.
Steps to reproduce:
- In File Explorer, right-click a .csv file and choose Open (or double-click it).
- Claude Desktop opens and shows "Attach '<correct filename>' to this session?"
- Click Attach.
- The content in the chat is from a different file than the one named.
Confirmed NOT the cause (ruled out directly):
- File corruption: read the file directly off disk outside any app; content is correct.
- Windows file-type association hijack: checked four times via registry (.md and .csv, both extension-to-progid mapping and the actual shell open command). All clean.
- Stuck app/OS state: persisted across a full shutdown and reboot.
Context: started shortly after ~100 duplicate CSV files were downloaded into Downloads in one session (a separate, since-fixed bug in an unrelated tool). The wrong file that gets attached appears to be from that same episode, suggesting a stale reference or cache inside Claude Desktop's own attach/file-picker logic.
Workaround: right-click "Open with," choosing Notepad or Excel explicitly, works correctly. Only plain Open/double-click triggers the wrong-content behavior.
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