Clipstream

Clipstream is a tool for printing clipboard contents to the standard output as they change. It provides a convenient way to access the system clipboard from the command line.

On a Linux system with X and the XFIXES extension, clipstream receives clipboard updates without creating processes constantly for polling.

Installation

Clipstream can be installed with pip:

pip install clipstream

For use as a command-line tool, it is recommended to use pipx to install Clipstream in its own isolated environment:

pipx install clipstream

Usage as a Command-Line Tool

Clipstream can be run from the command line with the following command:

clipstream

This will print the current contents of the clipboard to the standard output as they change.

There are several options available for customizing the output of Clipstream:

-n, --newline        Print a newline after each clipboard item.
-1, --one            Print one clipboard item, then exit.
-i, --include-initial Include the initial clipboard item.
-s, --strip           Strip whitespace from clipboard items.
-r, --polling-rate    How often to poll the clipboard, in Hz (times per second).
-0, --null            Print a null byte after each clipboard item.
-u, --unique          Print only unique clipboard items.

Usage as a Library

Clipstream can also be used as a library in Python projects. To use Clipstream as a library, simply import the clipboard_stream function from the clipstream.stream module:

from clipstream.stream import clipboard_stream

The clipboard_stream function returns an asynchronous generator that yields the contents of the clipboard as they change.

Examples

Here are some examples of how Clipstream can be useful as a tool:

• Downloading files from copied links:

clipstream | xargs -I_ wget _

• Writing copied text to a file:

clipstream | tee -a copied_text_file

• Get clipboard history + selector with a preview:

clipstream --strip --unique -0 | fzf --read0 --preview 'echo -n {}' --bind 'enter:execute(echo {} | xclip -selection clipboard)'