Show HN: Clyp – Clipboard Manager for Linux

Show HN: Clyp – Clipboard Manager for Linux(github.com)

79 points by timeoperator 314 days ago | 48 comments

bornfreddy 314 days ago |

One thing that I love about Windows (and there aren't many others) is that pressing Super+V (instead of Ctrl+V) shows a list of last N clipboard entries and you can select which one you wish to paste. Simple and very effective.

You can also pin some entries so that they are permanently available, but that's a bonus.

I haven't seen a clipboard manager behave like that in Linux - can this one be used in a similar way?

garciansmith 314 days ago | |

KDE's default clipboard manager lets you summon a list (and you can change what shortcut to invoke it and do things like use a shortcut to move to the next clipboard entry) and edit entries. It doesn't let you pin them though, I think.

baq 314 days ago | |

I’ve used ditto for this since before windows gained this capability. It also has an ignore list (e.g. keepass lives there) and a few other niceties which make it one of the first tools I install on a windows box (not very often anymore, granted).

Incipient 313 days ago | | |

Ditto is unparalleled. Ugly, but unparalleled. I've been using it for ages and every time I use a system without it I feel it's absence.

mnmalst 314 days ago | |

I use a popup like that myself a lot. Clipman on xfce supports that but no pinning.

sbene970 314 days ago | | |

The "Clipboard History"[0] Gnome extension also does this quite well in my experience. I also recently switched from Windows 11 (to Ubuntu), very happy so far.

Edit: Supports pinning and binding it to Super+V as well!

[0] https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/4839/clipboard-histor...

nine_k 314 days ago | | |

Yes, I this is the feature I miss most; I'm almost ready to try to remember how to write in C.

SweetSoftPillow 314 days ago | |

I configured copyq to work exactly like this, so it's doable.

ASalazarMX 314 days ago | |

Tried it, and found out I had disabled it in the past, and it fortunately has stayed off trhough updates.

How does it deal with usernames/passwords/secrets in the clipboard? Do you clean it up periodically?

Gracana 314 days ago | | |

I looked at mine, and it only has entries from my current login session.

pluc 314 days ago | | |

Use a password manager/passkey so you don't have to do this

pluc 314 days ago | |

Yup as others have said, super+v for me invokes greenclip's rofi plugin which gives me a nice themable clipboard history overlay.

hkon 314 days ago | |

I love that feature too. I replicated it with this. https://github.com/sentriz/cliphist

In addition to what is shown here, I added a job that runs every 5 minutes which prunes the history so that I can comfortably copy sensitive information as well.

Yasuraka 314 days ago | |

https://github.com/SUPERCILEX/gnome-clipboard-history

Can show last N entries and has a search bar as well, so you can click type away and cycle through results with TAB. Supports pinning as well.

allen_fisher 314 days ago | |

I'm using Gnome. On Gnome, you could just install "Clipboard Indicator" or something like this in Gnome Extension and set shortcut as "Super+V". It's pretty easy, I think.

Balinares 313 days ago | |

> I haven't seen a clipboard manager behave like that in Linux

Selection bias aside, Linux clipboards with history have existed for close to two decades, possibly more.

eknkc 314 days ago |

I thought wayland had some restrictions on global clipboard access and the last time I tried none of the well known clipboard managers worked as expected. (Also they all looked like shit).

This has been one of my pain points switching from macOS to linux or windows. Great job.

Arnavion 314 days ago | |

I actually went looking at the source code to see if this would work on Wayland and it doesn't. The clipboard snooping is implemented by listening for events using gdk.Clipboard, which is not an ext_data_control_v1 implementation. So on Wayland it'll only notice clipboard events if it's in focus (or if the compositor sends clipboard events to unfocused windows, which I'm not sure any do).

https://github.com/murat-cileli/clyp/blob/2c0ce6c33813c3f35f...

Edit: Yes, tested it now and it doesn't detect clipboard events from Wayland windows when it doesn't have focus. It only detects events from Xwayland windows when unfocused, or if I copy something from a Wayland window and then focus the clyp window then it detects the thing I copied.

nine_k 314 days ago | | |

It's almost as if a Wayland compositor should keep a list of trusted apps to broadcast clipboard events to, somehow similar to how screenshots are handled. (Not that Wayland is well-rounded in this regard.)

ghostly_s 314 days ago | | |

Odd, why does the readme tout "Full Wayland support" then?

beepbooptheory 314 days ago | |

That's interesting.. Never ran into this, been using various clipboard managers in wayland (swaywm at first, now niri) for years without issue. copyq is what I use these days and, while not quite as pretty as this one, its great!

knighthack 314 days ago |

I use CopyQ. Love it because it's so cross-platform, and consistently works across my Mac and Linux machines with minimal fuss; it handles images really well too.

KetoManx64 314 days ago | |

And you can sync your clipboard history across devices! Super handy feature

jdmg94 314 days ago |

Great work! does the CLI support clipboard operations like MacOS' `pbcopy` and `pbpaste` ? I've added it to my stars to keep and eye on the project, GTK4 and wayland support makes it rather futureproof IMO

opan 314 days ago | |

There's wl-clipboard for this, has wl-copy and wl-paste commands. I've been using it on sway for years.

k_roy 314 days ago | |

For Wayland I just use this:

        alias pbcopy='xsel --clipboard --input'
        alias pbpaste='xsel --clipboard --output'

I used to do the same thing on Xorg with xclip I think

Switching between macOS for job and linux for everything else, I’ve honestly never realized any difference.

yjftsjthsd-h 314 days ago | | |

I'm confused; xsel, as you might imagine from the name, is very specifically a program for manipulating the X11 selection and clipboard. So it does work on Xorg, but I'm very confused that it would work in any meaningful capacity on Wayland. Are you somehow using Xwayland?

esafak 314 days ago | |

It would be nice if you could pipe to it like pbcopy, with each invocation creating a new entry, and add support for automatically expiring old entries.

hungmung 314 days ago |

Linux clipboards have been a pain point to me for decades. What I really want is a single unified clipboard daemon that works across different login sessions and covers console and graphical environments with the same keyboard shortcut. Bonus points if it's got a single-use-paste option for passwords, and also buffers to hold onto multiple selections.

zahlman 314 days ago | |

> a single-use-paste option for passwords

This wouldn't prevent the malware that's constantly scanning the clipboard from stealing your password; it would only prevent you from using it after it's been stolen.

yjftsjthsd-h 314 days ago | | |

I would think that would at least have the advantage of making it easier to detect the problem?

tracker1 314 days ago | |

For clarity, are you expecting a clipboard in full terminal sessions (including serial?) or are you just meaning pty sessions with a terminal emulator?

I'm not sure how a clipboard manager would know the text copied in was a password (or 2fa).

fkhadra 314 days ago |

Congrats on the release, I went the other way around, osx first in my case https://github.com/fkhadra/xcp, I'll probably add support for linux and windows when I get the time. Funny that we both used golang for that.

precompute 312 days ago |

On Debian, I use a zeitgeist-compatible clipboard, and a rofi menu to fuzzy search / select the entries. Zeitgeist uses SQLite as well. It has only ever given me grief when I copied a very large image (>50MB) to the clipboard.

SweetSoftPillow 314 days ago |

Why images are limited to 3 and are there plans to fix that?

andrewshadura 314 days ago |

Does it support indicators? If not, any plans to add it?

tigrezno 314 days ago |

These clipboards are a privacy problem when you're sharing your screen. So many times a coworker has copy/pasted and a dialog with even passwords have been shown on screen...

hkon 314 days ago | |

Great point. It should be excluded from sharing session.