pyperclip3

Cross-platform clipboard utilities supporting both binary and text data.

Some key features include:

• A cross-platform API (supports MacOS, Windows, Linux)
• Can handle arbitrary binary data
• On Windows, some additional clipboard formats are supported

Installation

Requires python 3.7+

pip install pyperclip3

Usage

pyperclip3 can be used in Python code

import pyperclip3

pyperclip3.copy("hello clipboard") # copy data to the clipboard
cb_data = pyperclip3.paste() # retrieve clipboard contents 
print(cb_data)

pyperclip3.clear() # clears the clipboard contents
assert not pyperclip3.paste()

Or a CLI

# paste clipboard contents to stdout
python -m pyperclip3 paste

# load contents to the clipboard from stdin
python -m pyperclip3 copy < myfile.text
# same as above, but pipe from another command
some-program | python -m pyperclip3 copy

This library implements functionality for several platforms and clipboard utilities.

• MacOS
• Windows
• Linux (with xclip)

If there is a platform or utility not currently listed, please request it by creating an issue.

Platform specific notes/issues

Windows

• On Windows, the pywin32 package is installed as a requirement.
• On Windows, additional clipboard formats are supported, including copying from a file (like if you right-click copy from File Explorer)

MacOS

MacOS has support for multiple backends. By default, the pasteboard package is used.

pbcopy/pbpaste can also be used as a backend, but does not support arbitrary binary data, which may lead to data being lost on copy/paste. This backend may be removed in a future release.

Linux

Linux requires xclip to work (which means you must also use X). Install with your package manager, e.g. sudo apt install xclip