wl-copy

Copy data to Wayland clipboard

TLDR

Copy text to the clipboard

$ wl-copy "[text]"

Pipe command output to the clipboard

$ ls | wl-copy

Copy for only one paste then clear

$ wl-copy --paste-once "[text]"

Copy an image

$ wl-copy < [path/to/image]

Copy sensitive data (e.g., a password) without clipboard history

$ wl-copy --sensitive "[password]"

Set a specific MIME type

$ wl-copy --type text/html "[<b>bold</b>]"

Clear the clipboard

$ wl-copy --clear

wl-copy copies data to the Wayland clipboard. It can copy text from arguments or read binary data from stdin, automatically handling MIME types. The tool forks into the background by default to keep the clipboard contents available.Data can be piped into wl-copy for copying command output or file contents. It supports both the regular clipboard and the primary selection (for middle-click paste).

PARAMETERS

-o, --paste-once

Only serve one paste request then exit

-c, --clear

Clear the clipboard instead of copying

-p, --primary

Use the primary selection instead of clipboard

-n, --trim-newline

Do not append newline character

-t, --type mime-type

Set the MIME type for the content

-s, --seat seat

Pick the seat to work with

-f, --foreground

Stay in foreground instead of forking

--sensitive

Hint that content is sensitive (e.g., passwords); clipboard managers may avoid persisting it in history

-v, --version

Display version information

-h, --help

Display help message

INSTALL

sudo apt install wl-clipboard

sudo dnf install wl-clipboard

sudo pacman -S wl-clipboard

sudo apk add wl-clipboard

sudo zypper install wl-clipboard

brew install wl-clipboard

nix profile install nixpkgs#wl-clipboard

CAVEATS

Only works under Wayland; use xclip or xsel for X11. The process must stay running (or fork) to serve paste requests. Clipboard contents are lost when wl-copy exits in foreground mode.

HISTORY

Part of wl-clipboard, written by Sergey Bugaev for Wayland-native clipboard access. Provides equivalent functionality to X11 tools like xclip and xsel but uses the Wayland clipboard protocol.