What's like OSX's pbcopy for Linux

In a terminal in OSX I can pipe output to pbcopy and then go into a web browser and paste it. I tried this in Linux with xcopy but when I switch to the browser it just overwrites the clipboard with with whatever was in it the last time the browser was used. What works like pbcopy in Linux?

Solution 1:

If you have desktop version of Linux (X) installed you may try xsel in this way:

alias pbcopy='xsel --clipboard --input'
alias pbpaste='xsel --clipboard --output'

or with xclip:

alias pbcopy='xclip -selection clipboard'
alias pbpaste='xclip -selection clipboard -o'

Now you can use them:

echo 'go to my clipboard' | pbcopy

When I don't have X I use GNU Screen functionality to copy between open shells in a session using keyboard.

Copy:

• Ctrl-a
• Esc
• go to wanted position *
• Space (to begin selecting)
• press k to go forward mark text
• Enter

Paste:

• Ctrl-a + ]

* movements are done with vim like key bindings (j, k, l & m).

Solution 2:

Put a script like this called pbcopy in your bin folder:

#!/bin/bash
xclip -i -sel c -f |xclip -i -sel p

This will put STDIN in both your selection buffer and clipboard:

echo Hello world |pbcopy

Solution 3:

To expand on the solutions of @Erik and @xpixelz; these two scripts should work on both platforms:

pbcopy:

#!/bin/bash
__IS_MAC=${__IS_MAC:-$(test $(uname -s) == "Darwin" && echo 'true')}
if [ -n "${__IS_MAC}" ]; then
  cat | /usr/bin/pbcopy
else
  # copy to selection buffer AND clipboard
  cat | xclip -i -sel c -f | xclip -i -sel p
fi

pbpaste:

#!/bin/bash
__IS_MAC=${__IS_MAC:-$(test $(uname -s) == "Darwin" && echo 'true')}
if [ -n "${__IS_MAC}" ]; then
  /usr/bin/pbpaste
else
  xclip -selection clipboard -o
fi

Solution 4:

This answer refers to the Linux Subsystem for Windows.

Short answer: use clip.exe as if it were pbcopy in order to put something on the Windows clipboard. It's magic. Example echo "Hello Windows" | clip.exe in your bash or Ubuntu bash terminal, and then `ctrl-v' in a Windows program.

More context:

In a comment above I mentioned that, when using Xming on Windows to enable this functionality, it is necessary to set a DISPLAY variable (export DISPLAY=:0, in many cases) before the xsel and xclip solutions work. Infuriatingly, this solution works in an unreliable, stochastic way -- when pasting from Linux to Windows, pressing ctrl-v between one and ten times causes the clipboard to be pasted (one time) (this is on my Windows 10 Surface Book 2). Don't waste your time, use clip.exe.

NOTE: Don't forget the .exe. Otherwise Ubuntu bash will suggest that you install the Linux package geomview, which is not what you want.