Hover the reference. See the image.
A tiny macOS menu bar app that shows the images behind Claude Code's [Image #N] references, right in your terminal.
![datpreview showing a hover preview of [Image #1] in Claude Code](/datwalkerv/datpreview/blob/main/assets/screenshot.png)
- 🖼️ Hover Preview: Rest the pointer on
[Image #3]and a thumbnail appears below it, like a native tooltip with an image in it. Move away and it's gone. - 🔍 Click to Expand: Click the reference, or the thumbnail, to open the image in a dimmed full-screen viewer. Pinch or double-click to zoom. Esc or a click outside closes it, and you're back in your terminal.
- ⌨️ Works While You Type: An image you've just pasted can be previewed straight away, before you send the prompt.
- 🧭 The Right Image, Every Time: Each Claude Code session numbers its own images. datpreview finds the session running in the window under the pointer, so
[Image #2]in one tab never shows another tab's image. - 🖥️ Zed, iTerm2 and Terminal: Reads the text under the pointer through macOS Accessibility where the terminal allows it, and with on-device text recognition where it doesn't, as in Zed.
- 🪶 Stays Out of the Way: Lives in the menu bar, never takes focus while you hover, and never touches your typing, selection, copy/paste or clicks. It sits idle until the pointer rests on a terminal.
- 🌗 Native Look: Rounded, translucent panels that follow light and dark mode.
- ⚙️ Three Settings, That's It: Hover delay, preview size and open at login, all in the menu bar.
- Download
datpreview-<version>.dmgfrom Releases, open it, and drag datpreview into Applications. - Open datpreview. The first time, macOS may say it can't verify the developer, because the app isn't notarized. Go to System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down and click Open Anyway.
- Grant the two permissions the welcome window asks for (see below), then hover over any
[Image #N].
Requires macOS 15.2 or later, on Apple silicon or Intel.
| Permission | Why | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| Accessibility | Reads the text under the pointer | Terminal.app, iTerm2 |
| Screen Recording | Reads a thin strip around the pointer (about 560×56 points) and turns it into text on your Mac | Zed, which doesn't share its terminal text with macOS |
If datpreview isn't listed in either setting, click +, pick it from Applications, and turn it on.
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
Esc / ⌘W / Space |
Close |
| Click outside the image | Close |
| Double-click | Zoom in / back to fit |
| Pinch | Zoom |
⌘+ / ⌘- |
Zoom in / out |
⌘0 |
Back to fit |
- Language: Swift 6, built with Swift Package Manager (no Xcode needed)
- UI: AppKit, with non-activating panels for the preview and viewer
- Text Under the Pointer: Accessibility API
- Screen Strip: ScreenCaptureKit
- Text Recognition: Vision, on device
- Open at Login: ServiceManagement
- Claude Code saves each prompt, pasted images included, in its session log (
~/.claude/projects/<project>/<session>.jsonl). A prompt with images lists their numbers, and the images follow in the same order. - The moment you paste, Claude Code also writes the image to
/private/tmp/claude-<uid>/<project>/<session>/images/N.png. That's where an image comes from before you've sent it. - datpreview reads only the new part of a session log when it changes, and it remembers only where each image sits, not the images themselves.
- Every running Claude Code process notes its session in
~/.claude/sessions/<pid>.json. datpreview follows each process up to the terminal app that runs it. - When one terminal app runs several sessions, it compares the line around the reference with each session's prompts, and prefers the most recently active session.
- Extra Claude Code config folders such as
~/.claude-work, andCLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR, are picked up too.
- Terminal.app and iTerm2 expose their text to Accessibility, so datpreview asks for the characters under the pointer and the exact position of
[Image #N]. - Zed exposes no terminal text at all, so datpreview captures a thin strip around the pointer and reads it with Vision's accurate text recognition, in about 50 ms.
- datpreview makes no network connections. No accounts, no analytics, no update checks.
- It reads Claude Code's own files on your Mac, and only to show you your own images.
- The screen strip used in Zed stays in memory just long enough to be read, and is never saved.
- Your settings are the only thing it stores.
Made for terminal people. 🖼️
Hover the reference. See the image.