claude-code - 💡(How to fix) Fix Add one-click "Compact & drop images" recovery when hitting the 2000px many-images API error [1 comments, 2 participants]

Preflight Checklist

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

Problem Statement

When a conversation accumulates several images and one exceeds 2000px on its longest side, the API returns:

An image in the conversation exceeds the dimension limit for many-image requests (2000px). Start a new session with fewer images.

The error message itself tells the user to start a new session, which is a terrible recovery path:

All conversation context is lost. Users manually copy-paste the session text into a new window to preserve continuity. On high-DPI monitors (1440p/4K), native Snipping Tool screenshots routinely exceed 2000px, so this hits frequently and repeatedly in the same working day. The Rewind button only removes the most recent turn — it doesn't help when the oversized image is several turns back. This is a significant friction point. It pushes users to consider alternative tools.

Proposed Solution

Add a button directly in the error banner: "Compact conversation & drop images".

Behavior: run the equivalent of /compact but explicitly strip all image payloads from the summarized history, keeping only text. The session continues in place — no copy-paste, no lost context, no new window.

Alternative Solutions

Automatic client-side downscaling on paste/attach. If an image exceeds 2000px, the client transparently resizes it to 2000px on the longest side before sending. Most users don't care about pixel-perfect screenshots in chat context. Warning on paste, not on send: flag oversized images when they enter the composer so the user can resize before the turn is wasted. Per-image drop: let users right-click an image in the history and remove just that image, keeping its surrounding text.

Priority

Critical - Blocking my work

Feature Category

CLI commands and flags

Use Case Example

No response

Additional Context

The current UX makes the API limit feel like a product defect. A one-click recovery (or better, silent auto-resize) would eliminate the problem entirely for the vast majority of cases.