Sending and stopping

The message box at the foot of a tab is where you talk to Claude. You can send at any time, including while Claude is working, and stop it whenever you like.

Send a message

1. Click the message box and type. The box grows with your text, then scrolls.
2. Press Enter, or click the Send arrow. If the chip before Send says Ctrl+⏎ sends, press Ctrl+Enter (Cmd+Enter on macOS) instead.

Shift+Enter adds a new line. A message can be only images, only quick suffixes or only a large paste: Send works with any of them.

The empty box’s placeholder says which keys send, which add a line and which stop Claude: Message Claude… (Enter to send, Shift+Enter for a new line, Esc to stop). What you’ve typed stays with the tab when you quit (Earlier prompts, drafts and the stash).

Change the key that sends

Settings → Keyboard → Send with has two choices:

• Enter, with Shift+Enter for a new line, the default.
• Ctrl/Cmd+Enter, with Enter for a new line.

The chip just before Send says which is in use, ⏎ sends or Ctrl+⏎ sends (⌘⏎ sends on macOS), and clicking it switches to the other. It’s the same setting, so every tab changes with it. Send’s tooltip names the key too. See The send key.

With the second, Ctrl/Cmd+Enter on an empty box still answers a waiting prompt, as Allow the waiting prompt does (Permission cards).

Stop Claude

While Claude works, Send becomes Stop. Click it, or press Esc. Stop Claude is also in the command palette.

Stopping interrupts the current turn. It doesn’t close the tab or end the session, so you can send the next message straight away. It also takes back any messages that are still waiting (below): they return to the box instead of running once the turn ends.

If the / or @ list is open, Esc closes the list and doesn’t stop Claude.

Messages sent while Claude works

Settings → Conversation → Messages sent while Claude works chooses what happens to a message you send mid-turn.

Send them into the turn: Claude reads each at its next step is the default. Claude Code reads the message at its next tool call, or after the reply it’s writing. Until it does, the message’s card says Queued: sent when Claude can take it, with Cancel.

Queue them: each is sent as the next turn, once this one ends holds each message in Claudette until the turn ends, then sends them one per turn, oldest first. It’s for lining up the next task without turning Claude from the one under way. A held message’s card says Queued: sent when this turn ends, with two buttons:

• Send now sends it into the turn after all.
• Cancel takes it back.

Cancel puts what you wrote back in the box, with its images and large pastes, ahead of anything you’ve typed since, and a note says how many messages came back. If Claude Code has already taken a message, or can’t give it back, the card stays as it is and a note says so.

Some things about queued messages:

• Stop takes back everything waiting, whichever setting is on. So does Claude Code exiting, because held messages can’t go to a process that’s gone.
• A turn that a usage limit stopped doesn’t send the next held message, because the limit would stop it too. Held messages wait for the next turn to end, or for Send now. See When a limit stops a task.
• A message sent while nothing is working goes at once.
• Claudette’s own messages, check-ins and continuing after a limit, always go into the turn.

Settings

Setting	Default	Where
Send with	Enter, with Shift+Enter for a new line	Settings → Keyboard
Stop Claude	Esc	Settings → Keyboard, in the list of shortcuts
Messages sent while Claude works	Send them into the turn	Settings → Conversation

Shortcuts

	Windows and Linux	macOS
Send	Enter, or Ctrl+Enter with Send with changed	Enter, or Cmd+Enter with Send with changed
New line	Shift+Enter, or Enter with Send with changed	Shift+Enter, or Enter with Send with changed
Stop Claude	Esc	Esc

See also

• The working line and running tasks, the line above the box while Claude works.
• Permission modes, picked from the bar.