clipboard-files

Cut, copy and paste files from the clipboard in a Linux terminal.

Description

Clipboard-files provides a series of command line operations to cut, copy and paste files from the desktop environment clipboard with a Linux terminal. Files and folders can be copied and moved, to and from file manager applications, as well as between terminal instances.

The usage commands: ccopy, ccut, cpaste, cshow and cclear are symbolic links to the main script named clipboard-files in order to have short and concise command names.

Read a little blog post about the script here: https://larsee.com/blog/2019/05/clipboard-files/

Usage

• ccut FILE [FILE]... Cut files or folders to clipboard
• ccopy FILE [FILE]... Copy files or folders to clipboard
• cpaste [DIR] Paste files from clipboard into DIR or current dir
• cshow Show files on clipboard
• cclear Clear clipboard without any file operations
• . ccd cd to the dir of the 1st file on clipboard
• clipboard-files Show help

Example

$ ccopy file1.txt file2.jpg
2 item(s) copied to clipboard
$ cshow
Operation: copy
/home/lars/temp/file1.txt
/home/lars/temp/file2.jpg
$ cd folder/
$ cpaste
Copying the following items(s) to current dir:
/home/lars/temp/file1.txt
/home/lars/temp/file2.jpg
$ ccut *
2 item(s) cut to clipboard
$ cd ..
$ cpaste
Moving the following items(s) to current dir:
/home/lars/temp/folder/file1.txt
/home/lars/temp/folder/file2.jpg

Limitations

The script may not work in all desktop environments. The following should be supported:

• Gnome
• Mate
• Unity
• XFCE
• KDE Plasma 5 (ccut not supported)
• KDE

Installation

The script requires xclip. Install from a package repository, eg.:

sudo apt install xclip

Non KDE-Plasma 5 install

The following commands will install the script in /usr/bin/ and create the required command symlinks.

Go to a temporary folder and run:

git clone https://github.com/larspontoppidan/clipboard-files.git
sudo cp clipboard-files/clipboard-files /usr/bin/
cd /usr/bin
sudo ln -s clipboard-files ccopy
sudo ln -s clipboard-files ccut
sudo ln -s clipboard-files cpaste
sudo ln -s clipboard-files cshow
sudo ln -s clipboard-files cclear
sudo ln -s clipboard-files ccd

KDE-Plasma 5 install

The following commands will install the script in /usr/bin/ and create the required command symlinks.

Go to a temporary folder and run:

git clone https://github.com/larspontoppidan/clipboard-files.git
sudo cp clipboard-files/clipboard-files-kde-plasma /usr/bin/
cd /usr/bin
sudo ln -s clipboard-files-kde-plasma ccopy
sudo ln -s clipboard-files-kde-plasma cpaste
sudo ln -s clipboard-files-kde-plasma cshow
sudo ln -s clipboard-files-kde-plasma cclear
sudo ln -s clipboard-files-kde-plasma ccd

Uninstallation

cd /usr/bin
sudo rm clipboard-files ccopy cpaste cshow cclear ccd ccut

or for KDE-Plasma 5:

cd /usr/bin
sudo rm clipboard-files-kde-plasma ccopy cpaste cshow cclear ccd

To remove xclip:

sudo apt purge xclip

Thanks to

• The user woodenshoe-wi in this thread: http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=111880&start=15 for writing the original clipboard interfacing code