CLI Clipboard Get

ed clipboard get

Prints one entry as plain text on stdout, with no trailing decoration.

ed clipboard get <index> [--json]

Name	Type / values	Default	What it does
<index>	integer, from 1	required	The entry number, counting from 1.
--json	flag	off	Emit JSON on stdout.

--json is the same entry object ls emits with one extra key, text, holding the same string the human path prints:

{
  "copiedAt": "2026-08-06T22:38:12Z",
  "family": "text",
  "id": "9B4E77C0-3A15-4F2E-B0D9-51C8E2A7F3B4",
  "index": 3,
  "isText": true,
  "kind": "sql",
  "pinned": false,
  "preview": "select id, name from machines order by name",
  "sizeBytes": 43,
  "sourceApp": "TablePlus",
  "text": "select id, name from machines order by name"
}

Which entries can be printed is decided by the stored extension, not by the family:

• rtf, rtfd and html are rendered down to their plain text, so you get the words rather than the markup.
• txt, json, xml, csv, tsv, plist, yaml, sql, sh, py, rb, pl, php, js, swift, md, log, conf, ini and toml are decoded as UTF-8, falling back to UTF-16.
• everything else, images, PDFs, archives, copied files, copied URLs and any extension outside that list, is refused with exit 1 and pointed at ed clipboard copy instead.

That last rule is worth knowing because isText in the JSON can be true for an entry get will still refuse: a snippet copied as a source-code type Edith has no extension mapping for is filed under the text family but is not on the list above.

Examples:

ed clipboard get 1
ed clipboard get 3 --json
ed clipboard get 1 > note.txt
ed clipboard get 1 | pbcopy

$ ed clipboard get 2
error: entry png is not text
hint: use `ed clipboard copy` to put it back on the pasteboard instead

Nothing is written or reordered by get; it does not count as a copy, so the entry keeps its place in the list.

Where to go next

• ed clipboard, the rest of this group
• All ed commands