[HN Gopher] Show HN: A keyboard-centric clipboard history app fo...
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Show HN: A keyboard-centric clipboard history app for macOS
Hey HN, As a Software Engineer, I frequently copy and paste
content. The fact that macOS clipboard buffer can keep only one
item is very frustrating. It's very annoying to copy - switch app -
paste - switch app - copy - switch app - paste, and so on. Losing
items I copied hours ago and having to find and copy them again is
a waste of time. I tried many third-party clipboard managers like
Alfred, Raycast, Paste, Maccy, etc. While great, they didn't fully
meet my needs. As a developer, my requirements are: 1. Keyboard-
centric operation to avoid using the mouse. I don't want to waste
my time moving my hands from the keyboard. 2. Display many
clipboard history items at once. I don't like the idea with big
tiles, so I can see only 5-7 history items on my 32" monitor. 3.
Full content preview for each clipboard item. 4. Quick search
functionality. So, I created ClipBook for my own use. After months
of development, daily use, and positive feedback from my
colleagues, I decided to share it publicly. It's free. All data is
securely stored on your computer. I'm planning to make it open
source as well. If you try it out, please let me know if you found
it useful, if you have anything you'd like me to add, or if you
have any other feedback. Happy to answer any questions. Much
appreciated.
Author : Ikryanov
Score : 94 points
Date : 2024-06-11 16:40 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (clipbook.app)
(TXT) w3m dump (clipbook.app)
| valtlfelipe wrote:
| Looks awesome! Congrats on the launch. Unfortunately, I can't
| download the Universal or Intel version, I'm getting a
| UserProjectAccountProblem error.
| Ikryanov wrote:
| There was an issue with Google bucket. I fixed it. Should work
| well now. Thanks for the report.
| nilawafer wrote:
| <Error> <Code>UserProjectAccountProblem</Code> <Message>The
| project to be billed is associated with a closed billing
| account.</Message> <Details>The billing account for the owning
| project is disabled in state closed</Details> </Error> from
| gcloud
|
| looks cool can you mirror installer on github?
| Ikryanov wrote:
| Fixed. I will mirror installer on GitHub as well. Thanks for
| the idea!
| Unbiased8678 wrote:
| Interesting, I've been using raycast clipboard that even stores
| images. Instead of cmd+shift+v i use cmd+shift+p which is much
| quicker to pull up.
| nilawafer wrote:
| Copied content never leaves your computer and is encrypted on
| your local hard drive. Passwords copied from any password
| managers and other transient data are ignored by default.
| https://www.raycast.com/extensions/clipboard-history
| pjot wrote:
| Can you explain the cmd+shift+p a bit more? I use raycast as
| well, but need to opt+space+"c...l...I..."
| winstonp wrote:
| I do cmd+ctrl+v
| robertn702 wrote:
| Both of those combinations pretty commonly used in other
| applications
|
| cmd+shift+v -> unformatted paste
|
| cmd+shift+p -> command palette
|
| I use Karabiner and use right_command+v for the clipboard
| launcher without interfering with the other apps.
| Ringz wrote:
| Didn't try your app but as a longtime Maccy user: What is Maccy
| missing from these 4 points?
| Ikryanov wrote:
| I like Maccy, but it doesn't let me preview the full content.
| It crops the large text and adds "..." at the end. Also, I
| cannot select text in the Maccy's preview
| balloon/tooltip/popup. It just disapears if I try to work with
| the text in the preview balloon/tooltip/popup.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| What I've discovered is that I don't even want a menu. I want to
| hold the command key, tap the v key several times, and just have
| it cycle through until I get the one I want. It'd only release
| the past when I let up off of command (each tap of V would
| replace the previously pasted item with the next in this
| queue/ring). Command-C would just copy into the ring to the first
| position. Use another hotkey to remove an item, I guess. I don't
| need a visual history.
| jackthetab wrote:
| IIRC Flycut did that. Loved it but it only copied text and was
| abandoned a long time ago.
| taejavu wrote:
| Umm should I not be using Flycut? It's still on the app
| store.
| jshreder wrote:
| I'm still a daily-driver of Flycut and love it.
| disintegrator wrote:
| I really struggle with clipboard history apps because they are
| not very far from a keylogger and I don't want to have to trust a
| developer or third-party code with the contents of my clipboard.
| Am I being irrational?
| ko_pivot wrote:
| That's entirely rational but unless you build from source (and
| honestly even if you do) there's an attack vector present. The
| only real alternative is to review and allow list outgoing
| network traffic
| disintegrator wrote:
| I use Little Snitch religiously and for third-party apps I
| use occasionally I'm very pedantic with allowing them 10
| minutes of network access at a time. It sounds painful to
| manage but in practice only a few apps are super chatty. Apps
| that are my daily drivers get more generous network access
| rules.
| fiddlerwoaroof wrote:
| Do you only use first party applications otherwise? Any macOS
| application can poll NSPasteboard and extract your clipboard
| history and so I don't see the particular concern with this
| class of applications.
| msephton wrote:
| Passwords are excluded from clipboard history if everything is
| done correctly.
| pier25 wrote:
| I just use Alfred. Has clipboard history and so much more.
|
| https://alfredapp.com/
| Carrok wrote:
| Yea, OP says it doesn't meet their requirements, but Alfred
| does every requirement they list. It is paid, but I paid 12
| years ago and my license key is still working. Great dev(s?).
| danpalmer wrote:
| +1 the Alfred devs are lovely people.
| vunderba wrote:
| Raycast is also a Spotlight replacement that's very good and
| has a built-in clipboard history manager.
|
| https://www.raycast.com
|
| Everything that the OP listed it does out of the box (keyboard
| control, previews, searchable, etc). I'm very confused at what
| they found it was lacking.
| danpalmer wrote:
| Raycast is great, although I'm a little annoyed that
| unlimited clipboard history is behind a $10/month paywall -
| annoying given that it's just a config setting, I'm running
| the compute and storage.
| Andaith wrote:
| I just saw the parent comment about alfred, enabled the
| clipboard history extension in raycast, gave it a
| cmd+shift+v hotkey, and then read your comment about it
| being behind a paywall?
|
| Are you talking about a different none-extension clipboard
| history? I'm not paying for it and it works nicely.
| danpalmer wrote:
| Raycast only keeps history for up to 3 months unless you
| pay for it, then you can choose 6/12/unlimited. That has
| always felt like a silly limitation, and quite
| disconnected from a $10/month price.
| leejoramo wrote:
| As does LaunchBar, the Great Grand-Parent of all cmd-space
| launchers.
|
| While I can't claim to have used it in the NeXT era, I am
| pretty sure I have since Mac OS X Beta
|
| https://www.obdev.at/products/launchbar/index.html
| js2 wrote:
| I thought Quicksilver was older, but you're correct, LB goes
| back to NS:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaunchBar#History
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quicksilver_(software)#History
| pier25 wrote:
| oh wow I always thought Quicksilver was the first one (after
| Spotlight of course)
| msephton wrote:
| Another happy Alfred user here. Mostly for the clipboard
| history, snippets, workflows.
| ngnh wrote:
| Same here, it's simple and reliable.
| pzmarzly wrote:
| BetterTouchTool also supports clipboard history, it's just not
| assigned to any shortcut by default.
|
| https://docs.folivora.ai/docs/8_clipboardmanager.html
| nico wrote:
| Looks amazing, love the simplicity
|
| Does it support images? Can text clipboard items be edited on the
| clipboard before pasting?
|
| Are you planning on adding snippets?
|
| Alfred works really well for me in terms of snippets and
| clipboard history
|
| Except for one use case: quick edits
|
| For that, I end up having to paste the content somewhere, change
| it, (sometimes having to additionally re-copy, then paste in the
| final destination)
| GeekyNerd wrote:
| Raycast has this built in. Don't see the need to install a
| separate application for this purpose. Aren't such launchers
| mainstream already?
| Ikryanov wrote:
| I like and use Raycast, but I don't like the fact that I cannot
| resize Raycast window. It's pretty annoying, because I cannot
| see enough content in the clipboard history preview.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| If anyone is looking for a similar cross-platform and open source
| solution, CopyQ[1] is handy and scriptable.
|
| [1] https://hluk.github.io/CopyQ/
| Rygian wrote:
| How does this tool make sure not to historize any passwords
| copied onto the clipboard?
| Ikryanov wrote:
| I never thought about this. Thanks for asking. I will
| definitely add it, so you can add any app to the list of
| software that must be ignored.
| daaaaaaan wrote:
| See this site: http://nspasteboard.org/
| james2doyle wrote:
| Looks nice. I will probably stick with Maccy as it is open source
| and gets regular updates: https://github.com/p0deje/Maccy
| ashconnor wrote:
| I switched to Maccy after using Clipy for the last few years.
| Clipy hasn't been updated for a while and doesn't have an arm
| release.
|
| https://github.com/Clipy/Clipy
| zmmmmm wrote:
| any functionality to exclude passwords from making it into the
| history? This is the most annoying thing with Maccy for me (I
| literally have complex wrapper scripts that turn it on and off
| when I'm using my password manager which are flaky and annoying
| to maintain).
| accoil wrote:
| Have you tried CopyQ? I've not used it on MacOS, but on Windows
| and Linux it can exclude based off window title:
| https://copyq.readthedocs.io/en/latest/faq.html#how-to-omit-...
| Ikryanov wrote:
| That's one of the most requested feature for now. I will
| definitely add it, so you can add any app to the list of
| software that must be ignored. Thanks for your feedback!
| eviks wrote:
| Are there special "password" copy methods that mark a
| clipboard element as such so your app could exclude that
| instead of relying on an apps list (of course if that other
| app would use this method)?
| bosky101 wrote:
| One way to implement this would be to have a checkbox to
| ignore passwords/single words
|
| When checked ignore anything that has a space
|
| Slick UI. Well done.
| kickingvegas wrote:
| FYI, there's an alternate clipboard in macOS called the kill ring
| (influenced by Emacs) that lets you cycle through previously
| killed text. The default property is called NSTextKillRingSize.
| There's a bit of config to do but it still works (Sonoma 14.5 as
| of this writing) for native macOS apps.
| https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Co...
| OJFord wrote:
| I've been meaning to look for this since switching from Linux at
| work - will try it out when open source for sure.
|
| Are the keybindings customisable? I'm accustomed to Super-c
| showing my list and Super-v pasting, so now of course I keep
| messing up because selections aren't copied automatically,
| Super(Cmd)-c is doing it and not showing a list, and erasing my
| previous clip...
|
| I don't mind too much relearning muscle memory, but I do want to
| be able to customise a binding so I can settle on something
| common cross-platform.
| osbkca wrote:
| Nice. I made https://xclippy.com which has same the features.
| Ikryanov wrote:
| Xclippy looks nice. Upvoted your PH.
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| This is awesome, and I feel that this is indeed Alfred's
| Clipboard Manager on steroids. You did mention trying out Alfred.
| Without installing ClipBook but reading up on the features, what
| is missing from Alfred?
|
| Alfred's Clipboard Manager is pretty navigable with the Keyboard;
| the history is as much as there (I don't know about being
| infinite), and I can also see the preview, etc.
|
| I used to have Clipboard managers, but with Alfred + Powerpack, I
| did away with another program running on the menubar/background.
|
| Edit/Update: I just checked Alfred and I can keep plain text,
| images, files list, for 3 months.
| reboot81 wrote:
| Love that the app displays shortcuts on the lower left. Why I use
| Maccy: -Handles images -Removes formatting -Has shortcuts -Offers
| search -Is installed with Homebrew
|
| I often copy huge (+70000) rows of excel sheets. Makes Maccy
| sluggish. Superlarge clipboard entries I'd like to purge somehow.
| After X mins if larger than Y?
| owenversteeg wrote:
| Very nice and clean! Only feature request I have is to allow
| window repositioning and resizing :)
| bosky101 wrote:
| This should do one thing.
|
| Use sizeup or window managers instead
| eranation wrote:
| Ok, I'll be that guy. But what stops a very clever hacker from
| creating something useful and seemingly naive as this, but adding
| some hard to find backdoor in it. I was about to just install it
| but then stopped and thought, what could be the easiest RCE out
| there. Make a useful app, a catchy domain name, professional
| landing page, get social proof by getting it to HN front page and
| have zero people comment what I'm currently commenting... There
| is no link to source, no link to LinkedIn profile of the creator.
| I'm sure this is a legit app, but makes me wonder, am I the only
| paranoid person here?
| xandrius wrote:
| Yeah, I absolutely need open source for this and me building it
| fully myself. I wouldn't be able to trust it otherwise, unless
| it came with the OS itself.
| mortenjorck wrote:
| I actually had the same thought after I had installed it and
| noticed that the binary was over 600MB. Sure, it's probably
| just Electron, but still, it was just enough to get me to hold
| off on actually trying it for now.
| dbg31415 wrote:
| Only gripe... the default keyboard shortcuts are "paste un-
| formatted" in a lot of applications.
|
| Seems like some other combination of keys would be better to use.
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