Clipboard Sync

Synchronizes the clipboard across multiple X11 and wayland instances running on the same machine.

Example use cases:

Multiple displays: You run two or more desktop environments or window managers in separate ttys, switching between desktops using ctrl-alt-F*.
Nested wayland: You run a wayland compositor within a window. examples:
- you primarily use kde, but run sway in a window to consolidate all your messenger apps into a single tiled/tabbed window.
- you use gnome and develop extensions for gnome, so you run a nested gnome environment for testing.
VNC: You run a VNC server and would like all host and client logins from the same user to share the same clipboard.

Installation

Most users should install clipboard-sync with their operating system's package manager. If your system is not supported, please vote on the appropriate issue.

While waiting for support on your system, the Generic Linux approach is recommended. The Cargo installation is an alternative approach for discerning users.

Arch Linux

clipboard-sync is available in the Arch User Repository.

Ubuntu & Debian

For now, you have to build your own deb file from source. But the steps are simple.

Install the build tools:

sudo apt install make gcc libxcb1-dev libxcb-render0-dev libxcb-shape0-dev libxcb-xfixes0-dev
rust: https://www.rust-lang.org/tools/install

Download the code from the latest release on the releases page or using git:

git clone https://github.com/dnut/clipboard-sync.git
cd clipboard-sync

Build the deb file

make && make deb

Install the deb file

sudo apt install ./dist/deb/clipboard-sync_*.deb

Generic Linux

Install rust: https://www.rust-lang.org/tools/install
Download the code from the latest release on the releases page or using git:

git clone https://github.com/dnut/clipboard-sync.git
cd clipboard-sync
git checkout stable

Install either system-wide or for only the current user:

make && sudo make install  # system
make && make user-install  # user

It can be easily uninstalled:

sudo make uninstall  # system
make user-uninstall  # user

Cargo

clipboard-sync is published to crates.io, so it can be installed as a normal binary crate.

Install rust: https://www.rust-lang.org/tools/install
Install clipboard-sync

cargo install clipboard-sync

If you want it to run in the background, you can use tmux, or you can manually download the systemd service file and copy it to a systemd folder. For example:

wget -P "$HOME/.config/systemd/" https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dnut/clipboard-sync/master/clipboard-sync.service

It can be easily uninstalled:

cargo uninstall clipboard-sync
rm -r "$HOME/.config/systemd/clipboard-sync.service"

Usage

The typical set-and-forget approach is to enable to service:

systemctl --user enable --now clipboard-sync

If you don't want it to run constantly, only on-demand, don't use systemd. Directly call the binary as needed:

clipboard-sync

You can also daemonize clipboard-sync using tmux instead of systemd. ~/.bashrc aliases may be handy for these commands.

tmux new-session -ds clipboard-sync clipboard-sync  # start in background
tmux attach -t clipboard-sync                       # view status
ctrl-b, d                                           # while viewing status, send back to background
ctrl-c                                              # while viewing status, terminate the process