A clipboard-history panel for Linux, inspired by Paste for macOS. Press a global shortcut and a strip of tiles slides up from the bottom of the screen showing everything you've recently copied — text and images. Click a tile (or press Enter) to load it back onto the clipboard.
Lives in the system tray (a paperclip), never in the dock. Built for Wayland (developed on Pop!_OS 24.04 + COSMIC; also works on Sway, Hyprland, and other wlroots compositors).
- Bottom panel of tiles for recent clipboard text and images.
- Click-away to dismiss — the panel is a dimmed full-screen overlay; click anywhere outside it (or press Esc) to close.
- Tray icon + Settings (paperclip in the COSMIC panel). Not shown in the dock.
- Follows the COSMIC light/dark theme automatically.
- Settings:
- Open at login toggle.
- Sound on copy — a short synthesized tone when you copy.
- Always paste as plain text — strip formatting on paste; when off, rich formatting is preserved if the original had it.
- History retention — keep for 1 day / 1 week / 1 month / 1 year / forever, with automatic deletion past the threshold.
- Shortcut picker — press a key combo and Clippy registers it in COSMIC for you (with a backup of your existing shortcuts).
- Right-click a tile → Paste, Copy as plain text, Copy with formatting, Pin/Unpin, Delete.
- Pin items so they survive pruning and sort first.
- Search by typing.
macOS lets an app float a window over everything and grab a global hotkey. Wayland — by design — does not. Clippy uses the native Wayland mechanisms:
| Need | macOS | Clippy (Wayland) |
|---|---|---|
| Panel pinned to the screen edge | borderless window | wlr-layer-shell (gtk-layer-shell) |
| Watch the clipboard | NSPasteboard |
wl-paste --watch (ext-data-control) |
| Global hotkey | CGEventTap |
a COSMIC custom shortcut running clippy toggle |
| Tray icon | NSStatusItem |
StatusNotifierItem via Ayatana AppIndicator |
| Theme | system | reads COSMIC's is_dark and matches |
| UI | AppKit | GTK 3 (PyGObject) |
| Storage | — | SQLite + image files under ~/.local/share/clippy |
One binary, several roles:
clippy daemon # tray + overlay panel + IPC server + clipboard watcher
clippy toggle # tiny client → tells the daemon to open/close (your shortcut runs this)
clippy settings # open the settings window
clippy _store # internal: wl-paste runs this on every clipboard change
The shortcut → toggle → Unix socket → daemon path is what lets a global key
open the panel without any forbidden hotkey grab.
Download the latest clippy_*.deb from the
Releases page, then:
sudo apt install ./clippy_0.2.5_all.deb…or fetch it from the terminal with the GitHub CLI:
gh release download --repo davidboulay/clippy --pattern '*.deb'
sudo apt install ./clippy_*.debapt pulls in the dependencies automatically. Then launch Clippy from your
app list and open Settings to bind a shortcut (see below).
- Arch / Manjaro:
cd packaging/arch && makepkg -si - AppImage (experimental, any distro):
make appimage, then rundist/Clippy-*.AppImage - Flatpak / COSMIC Store: ❌ not viable — COSMIC withholds the privileged
layer-shellanddata-controlWayland protocols from Flatpak-sandboxed apps, which Clippy's panel and clipboard watching require. Details inFLATHUB.md.
git clone https://github.com/davidboulay/clippy.git
cd clippy
./scripts/install.shinstall.sh (asks for sudo once) installs the dependencies, a
~/.local/bin/clippy launcher and icon, enables autostart, and starts the
daemon — a paperclip should appear in your COSMIC panel. To build a .deb
yourself instead: make deb, then sudo apt install ./dist/clippy_*.deb (see
packaging/README.md).
Dependencies: wl-clipboard, python3-gi, gir1.2-gtk-3.0,
gir1.2-gtklayershell-0.1, libgtk-layer-shell0,
gir1.2-ayatanaappindicator3-0.1, libayatana-appindicator3-1, pipewire-bin.
Open the tray icon → Settings (or the ⚙ in the panel), click the shortcut
button, and press your combo (e.g. Super+V). Clippy writes
the COSMIC binding for you. To do it manually, run clippy setup-shortcut.
Tray not showing? Ensure COSMIC's Status Area / applet is on your panel. Either way, the panel's ⚙ opens Settings and the shortcut still works.
| Key / action | Effect |
|---|---|
| type | search history |
| ←/→ or ↑/↓ | move between tiles |
| Enter | copy selected tile & close |
| Ctrl+1…9 | copy the Nth tile & close |
| Ctrl+P | pin/unpin selected |
| Delete | remove selected |
| Esc / click away | close |
| left-click tile | copy & close (respects the plain-text setting) |
| right-click tile | menu: paste / copy-as-plain / pin / delete |
| middle-click tile | delete |
After selecting a tile, paste with Ctrl+V as usual.
clippy status # is the daemon up? how many items?
clippy settings # open settings
clippy clear [--all] # wipe history (--all includes pinned)
clippy quit # stop the daemonPreferences: ~/.config/clippy/settings.json (edited via the Settings window).
Fixed limits/geometry: clippy/config.py. Colors: clippy/theme.py.
Everything stays local:
~/.local/share/clippy/history.db— SQLite history (text + rich html inline)~/.local/share/clippy/images/— copied images~/.local/share/clippy/copy.wav— synthesized copy sound$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/clippy.sock— control socket (mode 0600)
Nothing leaves your machine. ./scripts/uninstall.sh --purge removes it all.
A backup of your COSMIC shortcuts is kept at
…/CosmicSettings.Shortcuts/v1/custom.clippy.bak the first time Clippy edits it.
- No auto-paste. Selecting a tile sets the clipboard; you press
Ctrl+V yourself (synthetic keystrokes on Wayland need
ydotool). - Plain/rich uses
text/htmlfor the rich case (wl-copy offers one type at a time); plain-only apps still get plain text via the plain-text path. - Multi-monitor: the panel appears on the compositor's active output.
- Needs a compositor with
wlr-layer-shellandext-/wlr-data-control(COSMIC, Sway, Hyprland). A plain GNOME Wayland session lacks layer-shell.
clippy/
cli.py subcommand dispatch
daemon.py AppController: tray + panel + settings + IPC + retention
panel.py overlay panel, tiles, context menu, plain/rich paste
settings_window.py settings UI + shortcut capture
tray.py AppIndicator tray icon
capture.py read clipboard → storage (+ sound, retention)
clipboard.py wl-paste / wl-copy wrappers (incl. html)
storage.py SQLite history (+ html column, time retention)
settings.py JSON preferences
theme.py COSMIC light/dark → generated GTK CSS
sound.py synthesize + play the copy sound
setup.py autostart + COSMIC shortcut editing
ipc.py Unix-socket control channel
config.py paths & limits
scripts/install.sh · scripts/uninstall.sh · data/icons/clippy.png
MIT