Image pasting in Windows to WSL in Terminal directly from clipboard

I also have the same problems.

i had the same problem

Can confirm, same issue. Super annoying to always have to save screenshots and then manually tell codex about them.

I can confirm here. just did the suggested update yesterday

now it says

>_ OpenAI Codex (v0.46.0)

if you hit ? it now shows

  / for commands                          ctrl + j for newline
  @ for file paths                        ctrl + v to paste images
  esc esc to edit previous message        ctrl + c to exit
                                          ctrl + t to view transcript

ctrl + v to paste images

but when I do have an image in the clipboard, nothing gets pasted at all. whereas the text paste works great + image paste in chatgpt works great too.

typical scenario: I screenshot something that gets added to the clipbaord, and I hit CTRL+V pretty much anywhere, and i'd like to do it in codex cli whereas it says it can accept it with a CTRL+V
=> quite frustrating

context: windows 11, codex cli running in wsl as suggested in the official openai install documentation a couple weeks ago when I first installed it

ctrl + v to paste images
not work on WSL on 0.46

Can confirm. Image pasting not working

0.47 still not working

Pull request: https://github.com/openai/codex/pull/5644

just upgraded to codex-cli 0.53.0
still not working

just upgraded to codex-cli 0.53.0 still not working

A temporary work around: https://github.com/unclejimao/WSL-Image-Clipboard-Helper/tree/performance-optimize

Same Problemo

This is the best candidate to get this fixed but the author is still waiting on things

https://github.com/openai/codex/pull/5644

<img width="694" height="476" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/46239fc6-95f1-45ab-ba64-6b68e3b56047" />

Done in 0.66-alpha 2

@Waxime64 Am I misunderstanding something?

• STRG + V: Nothing happens. As far as I know, there is no other way.
• STRG + ALT + V: ■ Failed to paste image: no image on clipboard: The clipboard contents were not available in the requested format or the clipboard is empty.

Codex CLI 0.66.0 / WSL2 / Ubuntu 24.04 (Host system: Windows 11 Pro & screnshot with Windows Snipping Tool)

What works for me now :

• Copy paste from Windows Explorer to WSL Codex (but also to windows codex)
• Drag and drop from Windows Explorer to WSL Codex (but also to windows codex)
• Copy from Photos app to WSL Codex (and windows codex) via memory

All done with CTRL+V.

However what didn't work is ShareX copy to clipboard and paste. That still doesn't work. Not sure how it's different. Maybe that is your case?

Actually CLTR+ALT+V copies the image from memory of ShareX and pastes it into Codex WSL, also works on Windows Codex.

Weird a bit that 2 different options to paste.

@PrzemyslawKlys So when I take a screenshot with the Snipping Tool (default tool for windows) and insert it into Word, I can see the photo. The same applies to web uploads, where you can insert an image using CTRL + V. Why use CTRL + ALT + V in the console: https://github.com/openai/codex/pull/6793#:~:text=Why%20Ctrl%2BV%20doesn%27t%20work%20in%20WSL%20terminals

Moving the file from Explorer to WSL Chat has always worked for me so far. But the advantage would be that you wouldn't always have to save first. But for some reason, Codex still can't process the screenshot.

Well i just tested

<img width="3773" height="1071" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/431511ca-67db-46cc-8bf5-a73ffd77ede6" />

Works both for WSL window and powershell (windows) window. I use Windows Terminal tho, so WSL runs within it. So it works for me in all cases including from nipping tool copy.

Thanks for the link to 6793, however it works 90% of the time for me with CTRL+V, just not for the memory one.

Actually CLTR+ALT+V copies the image from memory of ShareX and pastes it into Codex WSL, also works on Windows Codex. Weird a bit that 2 different options to paste.

WSL clean clipboard memory when is Byte array. In WSL we can only paste text. It's for that drag file works, because is transfert link but not work when you paste screenshoot or paste files. But if we use other command CTRL+ALT+V, we can call powershell for transfer clipboard to WSL memory

@Waxime64 But CTRL+ALT+V doesn't work for me either when I have a screenshot in the clipboard :(

Can you take a screenshoot with codex-cli version and you windows version ?
And in code-cli, if you press ?, that write CTRL+ALT+V for paste image ?

@Waxime64
Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.26200.0 x64 (Windows 11 Pro)
with WSL2 Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS (GNU/Linux 6.6.87.2-microsoft-standard-WSL2 x86_64)
Codex 0.71.0
Windows Terminal 1.23.12811.0

I took a screenshot using the Windows Snipping Tool (no autosave enabled in the settings) – it is now in the clipboard. I then tried to paste it into WSL2 Codex using CTRL + ALT + V:

<img width="1110" height="479" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/447d9811-7505-4db1-aa57-c1851b9c0dc9" />

Unable to paste clipboard, i think it worked intermittently

@TechWithTy

sudo nano /etc/wsl.conf
---
[interop]
enabled = true
appendWindowsPath = true
---
wsl --shutdown

That was the problem for me (this was missing) and should be included in the Codex WSL documentation (https://developers.openai.com/codex/windows/). Restart WSL. Then press CTRL + ALT + V.

https://github.com/openai/codex/issues/11150 / https://github.com/openai/codex/discussions/11145

Hey,
I find myself from time to time to paste an image snapshot from the clipboard. However, claude/codex in wsl cannot pickup the clipboard. so I made a small tool (lives in the sys tray) that will automatically save the image in a tmp folder and reutrn back the path to it which picks up wonderfully 😄

1. run the tool (access its menu via right click on the sys tray con)
2. snapshot image into clipboard
3. hit shift+ctrl+v (you can also select in the tool shift+alt+v) in claude
4. codex/claude will pick it up and show [Image #xxx]

enjoy!
https://github.com/shanytc/claude_image_fixer