Feature Request: Option to disable paste text collapse in input field

[wesleysmyth]

Summary

When pasting multi-line text into the Claude Code prompt input, the UI collapses it showing [Pasted text #N +X lines]. While this is a nice space-saving feature, it makes it difficult to review pasted content before submitting.

Problem

As a user, I often:

1. Paste text from another source (error messages, code snippets, requirements)
2. Want to review what I pasted before sending
3. Cannot see the full content because it's collapsed

This is especially problematic when:

• Recovering text after a crash (took a photo of screen, OCR'd it, want to verify accuracy)
• Pasting code that may have formatting issues
• Combining multiple pasted sections into one prompt

Proposed Solution

Add a configuration option to control paste collapse behavior. Options could include:

Option A: Global Setting

// settings.json or .claude/settings.json
{
  "input": {
    "collapsePastedText": false  // default: true
  }
}

Option B: Keyboard Toggle

• Ctrl+Shift+E (or similar) to expand/collapse pasted text in the input field
• Or a visual indicator that's clickable to expand

Option C: Threshold Setting

{
  "input": {
    "collapsePastedTextThreshold": 20  // only collapse if > 20 lines, 0 = never collapse
  }
}

Workarounds Attempted

• Creating a /expand slash command - this only works after submission, not in the input field
• Hooks - no paste event hook available

Environment

• Claude Code CLI
• macOS / Linux terminals
• Various terminal emulators (iTerm2, Terminal.app, Warp, etc.)

Additional Context

This would significantly improve the UX for users who frequently paste content and want to verify it before sending. The current behavior optimizes for visual cleanliness but sacrifices reviewability.

---

Happy to contribute a PR if someone can point me to where this UI behavior is implemented!

[github-actions]

Found 3 possible duplicate issues:

1. [Feature Request] Add option to display full pasted text instead of collapsed summary #18369
2. Keyboard shortcut or setting to expand [Pasted text #N] placeholders inline #11033
3. Allow viewing and editing content of “pasted text” blocks before submission #3412

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🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[PaulRBerg]

In the latest version (v2.1.34), they've decreased the threshold above which the pasted text is hidden in the input. It's much lower now and this is impacting my productivity big-time.

Please implement this feature!

[zleo77818]

Supporting this as a voice input user

I just commented on #3412 with more details, but wanted to +1 here as well since this issue specifically focuses on the configuration aspect.

I use voice-to-text dictation as my primary input method in Claude Code on Windows. The [Pasted text #1 +N lines] collapse makes it impossible to verify whether my voice transcription is accurate before submitting — which is critical since speech recognition often produces errors.

I can confirm what @PaulRBerg reported: the collapse threshold was noticeably lowered in recent versions. Even short inputs (3-4 lines) are now collapsed, making the problem much worse than before.

Proposal C (configurable threshold with 0 = never collapse) from the issue description would perfectly solve my use case. A simple toggle like "collapsePastedText": false would also work.

[that-lucas]

• OpenCode has disable_paste_summary
• Copilot CLI has compact_paste (see copilot help config's output)

I can't understand how this is the default with no override in CC when @bcherny himself uses dictation the whole time.

[PaulRBerg]

yep, it's really bad UX to see this

[jupdike]

Vote for this. This drives me bananas. Let me copy a prompt, kill a session, relaunch Claude, and paste and continue editing. Not allowing this, somehow, in any way, is utter divine madness. I have wasted an hour on this! Absolutely unhelpful and unexpected. I'm a big boy. I know how to edit multiline interactively. I'm not scared of it. That's arguably all Claude Code is!

[PaulRBerg]

yep, very bad UX. what happened to Claude Code as of lately? the UX has gotten worse.

[jupdike]

I ended up switching to the VS Code integration (CC plugin) just to be able to edit the prompt without an hour of trying to work around weird Terminal blaming CC blaming Terminal hogwash