diff --git a/src/service/attachment-uploader.test.ts b/src/service/attachment-uploader.test.ts
index 0237b1a..aedd8af 100644
--- a/src/service/attachment-uploader.test.ts
+++ b/src/service/attachment-uploader.test.ts
@@ -218,6 +218,31 @@ describe("attachment uploader", () => {
     expect(attachmentsApi.startMultiPartUpload).not.toHaveBeenCalled();
   });
 
+  test("ignores OpenClaw media:// authority URIs without attempting an upload or warning", async () => {
+    const attachmentsApi = createAttachmentsApi();
+    const client = { api: { attachments: attachmentsApi } };
+    const onWarn = vi.fn();
+
+    const uploader = createAttachmentUploader({
+      getClient: () => client as unknown as Opik,
+      getAttachmentBaseUrl: () => "https://www.comet.com/opik/api",
+      onWarn,
+      formatError: (err) => String(err),
+    });
+
+    uploader.scheduleMediaAttachmentUploads({
+      entityType: "trace",
+      entity: { id: "trace-1" },
+      projectName: "openclaw",
+      reason: "media-authority-uri",
+      payloads: ["media://inbound/example.jpg"],
+    });
+    await uploader.waitForUploads();
+
+    expect(attachmentsApi.startMultiPartUpload).not.toHaveBeenCalled();
+    expect(onWarn).not.toHaveBeenCalled();
+  });
+
   test("uploads multipart attachments without loading the whole file into one request body", async () => {
     const largeContents = Buffer.alloc(ATTACHMENT_UPLOAD_PART_SIZE_BYTES + 32, 0x61);
     const { dir, filePath } = await createTempMediaFile(".png", largeContents);
diff --git a/src/service/media.test.ts b/src/service/media.test.ts
index f946fe4..c179004 100644
--- a/src/service/media.test.ts
+++ b/src/service/media.test.ts
@@ -14,6 +14,18 @@ describe("media path extraction", () => {
     expect([...target]).toEqual(["/tmp/image.png"]);
   });
 
+  test("ignores media:// authority URIs instead of normalizing them to local paths", () => {
+    const target = new Set<string>();
+    collectMediaPathsFromString("media://inbound/example.jpg", target);
+    expect(target.size).toBe(0);
+  });
+
+  test("ignores media:// authority URIs with a host segment", () => {
+    const target = new Set<string>();
+    collectMediaPathsFromString("see media://host/path/to/example.jpg now", target);
+    expect(target.size).toBe(0);
+  });
+
   test("collects file:// local path references", () => {
     const target = new Set<string>();
     collectMediaPathsFromString("open file:///tmp/image.png", target);
diff --git a/src/service/media.ts b/src/service/media.ts
index 3b46c72..a9a8c3c 100644
--- a/src/service/media.ts
+++ b/src/service/media.ts
@@ -30,8 +30,10 @@ const MEDIA_EXTENSIONS = new Set([
   ".mkv",
 ]);
 
+// Reject the media:// authority form (e.g. OpenClaw media://inbound/...) — those are
+// logical URIs, not local paths, and must not be normalized to /inbound/... and stat'd.
 const MEDIA_SCHEME_LOCAL_PATH_RE =
-  /\bmedia:((?:~\/|\/)[^\s"'`]+?\.(?:png|jpe?g|gif|webp|bmp|tiff?|heic|heif|svg|mp3|wav|m4a|aac|ogg|oga|flac|opus|caf|weba|webm|mp4|mov|mkv))(?=[\s"'`]|$)/gi;
+  /\bmedia:(?!\/\/)((?:~\/|\/)[^\s"'`]+?\.(?:png|jpe?g|gif|webp|bmp|tiff?|heic|heif|svg|mp3|wav|m4a|aac|ogg|oga|flac|opus|caf|weba|webm|mp4|mov|mkv))(?=[\s"'`]|$)/gi;
 
 const FILE_SCHEME_LOCAL_PATH_RE =
   /\bfile:\/\/((?:~\/|\/)[^\s"'`]+?\.(?:png|jpe?g|gif|webp|bmp|tiff?|heic|heif|svg|mp3|wav|m4a|aac|ogg|oga|flac|opus|caf|weba|webm|mp4|mov|mkv))(?:\?[^\s"'`]*)?(?=[\s"'`]|$)/gi;