How can an application send an image to Claude via the Messages API?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation and Infographic
Images go in as content blocks — base64 or supported image URL — next to your text, not as email attachments or magic URL scraping.
Full explanation below image
Full Explanation
Multimodal Messages requests include content arrays with text and image blocks. Images are provided as base64 media sources or supported URL forms depending on API capabilities/docs. Email/FTP are wrong. Plain-text URLs alone are not automatic vision inputs.