GPaste is a clipboard management system for GNOME: a daemon that remembers what you copy, plus a GTK 4 interface, a GNOME Shell extension and a CLI to get it back.
New to the idea? This post explains what clipboard managers are for.
- Persistent history across sessions, with several named histories you can switch between, back up and delete independently.
- Everything you copy: plain text, rich text and HTML, images (de-duplicated by checksum, kept as files or as database blobs depending on the storage backend), URIs and colours.
- Encryption at rest — an optional libsodium-backed history, with the passphrase optionally kept in the keyring.
- Pluggable storage: an XML file, a per-history SQLite database that
persists incrementally, or nothing at all. Switch at any time from the
preferences or with
gpaste-client migrate. - Passwords: mark an item as a password to have it shown as a name instead of its contents, and excluded from the plain-text history. Give it a timeout and the clipboard stops handing it out once that runs out.
- Favourites: pin an item and the history never drops it on its own — the
size and memory limits give way instead. Filter the list down to the pinned
items from the UI, the extension or
gpaste-client --favourites. - Search, merge and edit items from the UI, the extension or the CLI.
- GNOME Shell integration through a native extension, with an optional experimental mode that runs the daemon inside the Shell itself.
- Global shortcuts through the XDG portal, so they work the same on Wayland and X11, and one switch in the preferences turns every one of them off.
sudo dnf install gpaste gpaste-ui gnome-shell-extension-gpastesudo pacman -S gpasteOne package: it ships the daemon, the graphical tool and the extension together.
sudo apt install gpaste-2 gnome-shell-extension-gpasteThe digit tracks the library API version, so it becomes gpaste-3 once this
release lands. Ubuntu's copy lives in universe and lags a long way behind —
several major versions, even on the current LTS — while Debian unstable keeps
up.
sudo zypper install gpasteGPaste is packaged in plenty of other distributions — Alpine, nixpkgs, Void and Gentoo among them. Repology tracks which version each one ships.
Wherever it came from, enable the extension in the Extensions app once it is installed.
On Fedora and other rpm-based distributions:
# Build dependencies
sudo dnf install meson ninja-build gcc gettext-devel \
glib2-devel gtk4-devel libadwaita-devel gcr-devel \
dbus-devel gnome-control-center
# Optional, but on by default when found
sudo dnf install libsodium-devel sqlite-devel libsecret-devel \
libpwquality-devel gobject-introspection-devel valaOn Debian, Ubuntu and other deb-based distributions:
# Build dependencies
sudo apt install meson ninja-build build-essential pkg-config gettext \
libglib2.0-dev libgtk-4-dev libadwaita-1-dev libgcr-4-dev \
libdbus-1-dev systemd-dev gnome-control-center
# Optional, but on by default when found
sudo apt install libsodium-dev libsqlite3-dev libsecret-1-dev \
libpwquality-dev gobject-introspection \
libgirepository1.0-dev valacdbus, systemd and gnome-control-center are wanted for their pkg-config files
alone, which say where the D-Bus service and interface files, the systemd user
unit and the control-center keybinding files go. Fedora ships systemd's in the
base package, which is why only the apt line names it. A packager who would
rather not pull any of them in can name the four directories outright —
-Ddbus-services-dir, -Ddbus-interfaces-dir, -Dsystemd-user-unit-dir and
-Dcontrol-center-keybindings-dir — and dbus and gnome-control-center are still
needed at runtime either way.
Then, wherever you are:
git clone https://github.com/Keruspe/GPaste.git
cd GPaste
meson setup build
ninja -C build
sudo ninja -C build install
sudo glib-compile-schemas /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/GPaste currently needs GLib 2.90, GTK 4.24, libadwaita 1.10 and gcr 4. That libadwaita is newer than anything Debian ships outside experimental, so a deb-based build of the 51 series needs one built by hand.
Pass these to meson setup (or meson configure build) as -Doption=value.
The feature ones default to auto: enabled when the dependency is present,
skipped otherwise.
| Option | Default | What it controls |
|---|---|---|
encryption |
auto |
libsodium-based history encryption |
sqlite |
auto |
the SQLite storage backends (needs SQLite ≥ 3.35) |
libsecret |
auto |
remember the encryption passphrase in the keyring |
pwquality |
auto |
rate a passphrase or a password as it is typed |
gnome-shell |
true |
the GNOME Shell extension and the mutter clipboard backend |
introspection |
true |
GIR data |
vapi |
true |
Vala bindings (requires introspection) |
systemd |
true |
the systemd user unit |
bash-completion, zsh-completion, fish-completion |
true |
shell completions |
For a minimal build:
meson setup build -Dgnome-shell=false -Dintrospection=false -Dvapi=false| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
| Ctrl+Alt+H | Show the history |
| Ctrl+Alt+G | Launch the graphical tool |
| Ctrl+Alt+V | Pop the first item off the history |
| Ctrl+Alt+S | Mark the active item as a password, if it is a text one |
| Ctrl+Alt+O | Sync the clipboard to the primary selection |
| Ctrl+Alt+P | Sync the primary selection to the clipboard |
| Ctrl+Alt+U | Upload the active item to a pastebin |
All of them are configurable in the preferences.
Uploading runs whatever the upload-command preference names, defaulting to
curl -sS --data-binary @- https://paste.rs. Any command that takes the item on its
standard input and answers the url on its standard output will do —
wgetpaste, pastebinit and nc termbin.com 9999 among them.
Inside the graphical tool, which has a few of its own:
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
| Ctrl+F | Search the history |
| Ctrl+N | Add a new item |
| Ctrl+Shift+N | Add a new password |
| Ctrl+0…9 | Paste the item at that index |
| Ctrl+, | Show the preferences |
| Ctrl+? | Show the keyboard shortcuts |
| Ctrl+W or Esc | Close the window |
| Menu or Shift+F10 | Open the selected item's menu |
gpaste-client # print the history
gpaste-client --oneline --use-index # ... one line per item, numbered
gpaste-client search <pattern> # print matching items
gpaste-client select <uuid> # put an item back in the clipboard
gpaste-client add <text> # copy some text
echo hello | gpaste-client # copy from a pipe
gpaste-client file <path> # copy a file's contents
gpaste-client delete <uuid> # forget one item
gpaste-client empty # forget everything
gpaste-client ui # open the graphical tool
gpaste-client preferences # open the settings
gpaste-client migrate # switch storage backend
gpaste-client change-passphrase # re-key an encrypted historygpaste-client help lists every subcommand; see also man gpaste-client.
Items are addressed by UUID by default. Pass --use-index to use their
position in the history instead.
Restart the daemon so the new version takes over:
gpaste-client daemon-reexec
gpaste-client daemon-version # confirm which one is runningThree libraries are installed, each with its own pkg-config file, headers, GIR and VAPI:
| Library | pkg-config | GIR | Contents |
|---|---|---|---|
libgpaste-3 |
gpaste-3 |
GPaste-3 |
Core objects, settings, and the D-Bus client for the daemon |
libgpaste-daemon |
gpaste-daemon |
GPasteDaemon-1 |
The clipboard item hierarchy, the history and the storage backends |
libgpaste-gtk4 |
gpaste-gtk4 |
GPasteGtk-4 |
GTK 4 / libadwaita widgets and helpers |
Each has a single umbrella header — <gpaste.h>, <gpaste-daemon.h> and
<gpaste-gtk4.h> — which is the only one you may include directly.
Run the test suite from the build directory:
ninja -C build testAGENTS.md documents the architecture, coding style and
repository conventions in more detail.
Bug reports and patches are welcome on GitHub.
Translations go through Weblate, which credits every translator on the project page.
GPaste is what a hundred or so people have made it: thanks to everyone who has contributed.
The latest release for GNOME 50 is GPaste 50.10 (tarball).
GNOME 51 is being prepared: GPaste 51.beta (tarball).
Release announcements and everything else about GPaste are
on my blog. See
NEWS for the full changelog.