ClipMaster

Lightweight, intelligent clipboard manager for power users

中文文档

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Why ClipMaster?

Most clipboard managers are either too simple or bloated with unnecessary features. ClipMaster sits in the sweet spot: lightweight + intelligent.

Feature	ClipMaster	CopyQ	Ditto	ClipChronicle
Smart content classification	Yes	No	No	No
Code syntax highlighting	Yes	No	No	No
Color value preview	Yes	No	No	No
Link rich preview (favicon)	Yes	No	No	No
Memory footprint	~80 MB	~120 MB	~50 MB	~200 MB
Cross-platform	Win/Mac/Linux	Win/Mac/Linux	Windows	Win/Mac/Linux
Open source	MIT	GPL	GPL	MIT

Features

• Intelligent Content Classification — Automatically detects and tags clipboard content as code, link, color, email, or plain text using zero-dependency regex analysis
• Code Syntax Highlighting — Copied code snippets are displayed with language-aware syntax highlighting (12+ languages)
• Color Value Preview — Hex, RGB, and HSL color values show a live color swatch
• Link Rich Preview — URLs display the domain name with a favicon
• Category Filtering — Quickly filter your clipboard history by content type
• Virtual Scrolling — Handles thousands of entries without UI lag
• Keyboard Navigation — Arrow keys + Enter for mouse-free workflow
• Global Hotkey — Configurable shortcut to summon ClipMaster from anywhere (default: Alt+Shift+V)
• Pin Important Items — Pin frequently used snippets to the top
• Image Support — Copies and previews images with automatic thumbnail generation
• Adaptive Polling — Reduces CPU usage when idle
• SQLite Storage — Fast, reliable, WAL-mode database with prepared statements
• Memory Optimized — Constrained V8 heap, thumbnail-based deduplication, chunked history cleanup
• Privacy First — All data stays local, no network requests (except optional favicon fetch)

Installation

Download

Releases coming soon. For now, build from source.

Build from Source

# Clone
git clone https://github.com/clipmaster/clipmaster.git
cd clipmaster

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Development
npm run dev

# Build for your platform
npm run build:win    # Windows
npm run build:mac    # macOS
npm run build:linux  # Linux

Usage

1. Launch ClipMaster — it lives in your system tray
2. Copy anything — text, code, links, colors, images
3. Press Alt+Shift+V (configurable) to open the clipboard panel
4. Click any item to copy it back to clipboard
5. Use the filter bar to narrow by content type
6. Right-click for settings and history management

Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Framework	Electron 39 + electron-vite
Renderer	React 19 + TypeScript
Database	better-sqlite3 (WAL mode)
Highlighting	highlight.js (tree-shaken)
Build	electron-builder

Project Structure

src/
├── main/                  # Electron main process
│   ├── index.ts           # App entry, window management
│   ├── database.ts        # SQLite operations
│   ├── clipboardWatcher.ts# Clipboard polling with adaptive interval
│   ├── imageStore.ts      # Image save/read/thumbnail
│   ├── ipc.ts             # IPC handler registration
│   ├── shortcut.ts        # Global hotkey management
│   └── tray.ts            # System tray
├── preload/               # Context bridge
├── renderer/              # React UI
│   └── src/
│       ├── App.tsx
│       ├── components/
│       │   ├── ClipboardList.tsx  # Virtual list + card rendering
│       │   ├── FilterBar.tsx      # Category filter buttons
│       │   ├── SearchBar.tsx
│       │   └── Settings.tsx
│       └── hooks/
│           └── useClipboard.ts
└── shared/                # Shared between main & renderer
    ├── types.ts           # ClipboardItem, ClipboardAPI, ContentCategory
    └── classifier.ts      # Content classification engine

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for development setup, coding conventions, and pull request guidelines.

License

MIT — feel free to use, modify, and distribute.