Claude Code Lets You Recover a Prompt Cleared With Ctrl+C
Claude CodeClaude Code 2.1.288 adds recovery for a prompt that was cleared with Ctrl+C. Pressing Up on the empty prompt now brings the draft back, including pasted text and images. The change removes a long-standing source of lost work, especially when composing long prompts with screenshots.
Key Takeaways
- Pressing Up on an empty prompt now restores a draft that was cleared with Ctrl+C.
- Pasted text and images return too, so long multimodal prompts are not lost.
- The behavior brings Ctrl+C in line with double Esc, which already saved cleared drafts to history.
- The change targets a common macOS slip, where Ctrl+C sits beside the Ctrl+V used for image paste.
- It removes a long-requested safeguard that users had asked for in public feature requests.
- No new setting is needed: the recovery works by default after updating to 2.1.288.
Undo for an accidental Ctrl+C
Claude Code 2.1.288 added recovery for a prompt cleared with Ctrl+C. After the input is cleared, pressing Up on the empty prompt brings the draft back, including any pasted text and images that were part of it.
The problem it solves
Until now, a single Ctrl+C cleared the whole prompt input with no way back. Double Esc already cleared the input while saving the draft to history, so Up could recall it, but Ctrl+C simply discarded the text. Users had asked for parity in public feature requests, noting that the problem is sharpest when composing long prompts with several screenshots. On macOS, image pasting uses Ctrl+V, and the C key sits right next to V, so a slip while pasting is easy to make and costly to repeat.
How it works in practice
The recovery path matches what double Esc already offered. Clear the prompt with Ctrl+C, change your mind, press Up on the now empty input, and the previous draft returns with its attachments. Because pasted text and images come back too, the full composition is restored rather than only the typed words.
Why it matters
Losing a carefully written prompt is a small but frustrating failure that interrupts flow. By making both clearing gestures recoverable, Claude Code 2.1.288 makes the prompt box more forgiving, which is especially useful for people who iterate on long, context-heavy instructions.