clipbox

A self-hosted shared clipboard for copying text between devices on your local network.

Features

• Named buffers -- create multiple independent text buffers
• File sharing -- upload and download files alongside the text buffers
• Auto-save -- changes save automatically as you type, with a status indicator
• Copy button -- one-tap copy on both desktop and mobile
• curl-friendly -- read, write, and delete buffers from the terminal
• Mobile-friendly -- responsive UI that works on phones and tablets, installable as a PWA
• SQLite storage -- persistent, zero-config database stored in the platform-appropriate data directory

Filenames are kept as sent -- spaces, accents, emoji and macOS screenshot names all round-trip. Uploads are stored under an opaque name on disk, so nothing in a filename can reach the filesystem.

Install

Requires Python 3.14+. Use uv.

Usage

uvx clipbox

OR

uvx clipbox --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8080

This starts the server on http://0.0.0.0:8080. Open it in a browser from any device on your network.

curl

Clipboard operations

curl http://host:port/my-buffer                         # read a buffer
curl -X PUT -d 'text' http://host:port/my-buffer        # write to a buffer
curl -X PATCH -d 'new-name' http://host:port/my-buffer  # rename a buffer
curl -X DELETE http://host:port/my-buffer               # delete a buffer
curl http://host:port/api/buffers                       # list all buffers (JSON)

File Operations

curl -F 'file=@photo.jpg' http://host:port/files/   # upload a file
curl http://host:port/files/filename                # download a file
curl -X DELETE http://host:port/files/filename      # delete a file
curl http://host:port/api/files                     # list all files (JSON)

Environment variables

Data storage

The database is stored in the platform-appropriate data directory by default, with uploaded files in a files/ subdirectory next to it:

Override with the CLIPBOX_DB environment variable.

Development

make test     # run the test suite
make check    # lint and type-check
make format   # apply formatting