gcopy

gcopy (global copy) is a command line tool that copies data to your clipboard on MacOS.

It does what pbcopy does but with some extra features:

• Works with images, so copied images can be pasted in other applications
• Accepts arbitrary STDIN via a pipe
• If a filename is passed as an argument it'll copy the data as though you hit CMD+C via Finder, allowing pasting of files (PDFs, archive files, videos etc.) to other programs
• Has an optional flag to copy the absolute pathname of a file or folder to the clipboard
• Written in Go, deployed as a multi-arch static binary
• Works as a drop-in replacement for pbcopy since it extends its features

Install

Via go install

go install github.com/TheDen/gcopy@latest

Brew

To install via brew

brew tap theden/gcopy
brew install gcopy

Aliasing

gcopy can be used as a drop-in replacement for pbcopy. To do this, add the alias into your .bashrc or similar

alias pbcopy='gcopy'

Usage

Overview

usage: gcopy [file] [STDIN] [-h|--help] [-v|--version] [-p|--path]

                            gcopy: copy content to the clipboard

Arguments:

  -h  --help     Print help information
  -v  --version  Current version
  -p  --path     Copy (and show) the absolute pathname of a file or folder to
                 the clipboard

Copying to clipboard via STDIN

Works with text or arbitrary data

cat main.go | gcopy
# or
gcopy < main.go

Images can also be copied via pipes, and then pasted as images to GUI applications

cat image.png | gcopy
# or
gcopy < image.png

Passing in files to copy to the clipboard

gcopy main.go

Similarly for images

gcopy image.png

Or any other type of file

gcopy backups.zip

Copying via this method will allow you to paste non-text data in other applications

Getting the absolute path of a file or folder

gcopy -p .bashrc
/Users/den/.bashrc