wsl-clipboard 📋

Blazingly fast Windows clipboard utility for WSL applications and Neovim running under WSL.
Build using Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2019 Version 16.11.19 on Windows 10 Version 21H2 (OS Build 19044.2006).

Features

Get and set windows clipboard
Support Unicode characters
Additional shell script for WSL for removing CR end of a line
Support Neovim
Support Tmux

Installation

Install wsl-clipboard by download Windows executable and shell scripts from release page

  wget https://github.com/memoryInject/wsl-clipboard/releases/download/v0.1.0/wclip.exe
  wget https://github.com/memoryInject/wsl-clipboard/releases/download/v0.1.0/wcopy
  wget https://github.com/memoryInject/wsl-clipboard/releases/download/v0.1.0/wpaste

After downloading wclip.exe, wcopy and wpaste:
Move wclip.exe into C:\Windows\System32\ or any other Windows file system location that is on system PATH.

**NOTE: do not copy wclip.exe in WSL file system location, it will slow down the executaion of Windows applications).

Next move wcopy and wpaste into WSL file system location /usr/bin/.

Usage/Examples

wclip.exe usage:

Execute wclip.exe under WSL bash terminal.
To get all the help run wclip.exe --help:

~
❯ wclip.exe --help
usage: wclip.exe [<flags>]

WSL-Clipboard Utility

Blazingly fast Windows clipboard utility for WSL applications and Neovim running under WSL



Flags:
  -h, --help                  Show help
  -o, --output                Output clipboard contents
  -i, --input <input-text>    Input clipboard contents

Set clipboard content wclip.exe -i "Hello world 😀"

~                                                                                         ✘ INT
❯ wclip.exe -i "你好 😀"

Get clipboard content wclip.exe -o or exetute without any flags wclip.exe

❯ wclip.exe --output
你好 😀

It also support pips echo "Hello world!" | wclip.exe -i

~
❯ echo "Hello World! 😎" | wclip.exe -i
~
❯ wclip.exe
Hello World! 😎

wcopy and wpaste usage:

wcopy and wpaste are shell script for easy usage in WSL, wpaste also remove CR at the end of the line which is came from Windows side.

wcopy usage, it only support pipes. wpaste will output contents from clipboard, both of them do not support any flags.

~
❯ echo "Hello" | wcopy
~
❯ wpaste
Hello

The main reason these sctipts exists is, it is easy to use with Neovim and Tmux when we use system clipboard.

Neovim integration

If you are running Neovim under WSL and want to use system clipboard, add the lua script into your configuration:

vim.opt.clipboard = "unnamedplus"               -- allows neovim to access the system clipboard

-- Set wsl-clipboard for vim clipboard if running WSL
-- Check if the current linux kernal is microsoft WSL version
local function is_wsl()
  local version_file = io.open("/proc/version", "rb")
  if version_file ~= nil and string.find(version_file:read("*a"), "microsoft") then
    version_file:close()
    return true
  end
  return false
end

-- If current linux is under WSL then use wclip.exe
-- More info: https://github.com/memoryInject/wsl-clipboard
if is_wsl() then
  vim.g.clipboard = {
    name = "wsl-clipboard",
    copy = {
      ["+"] = "wcopy",
      ["*"] = "wcopy"
    },
    paste = {
      ["+"] = "wpaste",
      ["*"] = "wpaste"
    },
    cache_enabled = true
  }
end

Tmux integration

If you are running Tmux under WSL and want to use system clipboard for vi style yank, add the script into tmux configuration:

# Vim like selection and copy text
bind -T copy-mode-vi v send-keys -X begin-selection
bind -T copy-mode-vi y send-keys -X copy-pipe-and-cancel 'wcopy'

Screenshots

Alternatives

If you find that wsl-clipboard doesn't quite satisfy your requirements, these may be a better fit:

win32yank

Contributing

Contributions are always welcome!

Pull requests are welcome. For major changes, please open an issue first to discuss what you would like to change.

License

MIT

Support

For support, email msmahesh@live.com.

More info: www.memoryinject.io