LinPaste

A clipboard history manager for Ubuntu (Wayland / GNOME) — the Win + V experience Windows has, but for Linux.

Linux gives you only a single clipboard slot: copy something new and the previous item is gone. LinPaste runs quietly in the background, remembers everything you copy — text and images — and pops up a searchable history when you press Super + V. Pick an item and it's pasted straight into wherever you were typing (and left on your clipboard, so you can Ctrl + V it again).

Features

• Text & image history — every copy is remembered, including screenshots and copied images (stored as files, shown as thumbnails).
• Searchable popup — Super + V opens a GTK4 / libadwaita window with live search; just start typing to filter.
• Keyboard-first — navigate with ↑ / ↓, paste with Enter, pin with Ctrl + P, delete with Delete, close with Esc. No mouse required.
• Auto-paste — picking an entry copies it and pastes it straight into the window you were in (synthesized Ctrl + V); disable to copy-only.
• Pinning — keep frequently-used entries at the top; pinned items are never trimmed away.
• De-duplication — re-copying something just bumps it back to the top instead of cluttering the list.
• Automatic trimming — history is capped (default 500 unpinned entries) so it never grows unbounded.
• Password-manager privacy — content flagged sensitive (x-kde-passwordManagerHint) is skipped and never stored.
• Clear & delete — remove a single entry, or wipe all history (pinned-aware) from the popup's trash button or the CLI.
• CLI — list, clear, show, status, setup for scripting and setup.
• Local & boring storage — plain SQLite + image files under XDG data dirs; easy to inspect, back up, or delete.

See ROADMAP.md for what's planned (snippets, encryption, content-type filters, non-GNOME desktops, opt-in sync, and more).

How it works

GNOME Shell extension  ──►  linpaste store  ──►  SQLite history.db
 (polls clipboard ~1s)       (dedup + trim)              │
                                                         ▼ read
        Super+V (GNOME shortcut) ──► linpaste show (GTK4 popup) ──► wl-copy

• Capture — On GNOME, Mutter exposes no data-control Wayland protocol, so background tools like wl-paste --watch / cliphist cannot read the clipboard (only the focused app, or the shell, can). LinPaste therefore ships a tiny GNOME Shell extension that polls the clipboard and pipes each new copy to linpaste store. This is the same approach GPaste and Clipboard Indicator use.
• Storage — SQLite at ~/.local/share/linpaste/history.db. Identical re-copies are de-duplicated; history is capped (default 500 unpinned entries). Copied images are saved as files under ~/.local/share/linpaste/images/ and referenced from the database.
• Popup — a GTK4 / libadwaita window with live search and keyboard nav. Text entries show a preview; image entries show a thumbnail and are copied back as images on Enter. The trash button in the header clears all history.
• Hotkey — bound through GNOME (Wayland blocks in-app global hotkeys), so GNOME launches linpaste show on Super + V.
• Privacy — clipboard contents flagged by password managers (x-kde-passwordManagerHint) are skipped.

Install

Option A — .deb package (recommended for a fresh device)

sudo apt install ./linpaste_0.2.0_all.deb

apt pulls in every dependency (wl-clipboard, GTK4, libadwaita, GNOME Shell). Then, per user:

# log out and back in once (so GNOME loads the capture extension), then:
linpaste setup     # binds Super+V and enables capture
linpaste status    # should say State: ACTIVE

Don't have the .deb yet? Build one from this repo:

./packaging/build-deb.sh        # -> dist/linpaste_<version>_all.deb

Option B — from source (for development)

./install.sh       # apt deps + pip install + extension + hotkey

Either way: log out and back in once after installing, so GNOME loads the capture extension (on Wayland the shell can't hot-load a new extension's files). Then linpaste setup (or linpaste enable) turns capture on.

Usage

Action	Key
Open popup	Super + V
Filter	just start typing
Move selection	↑ / ↓
Copy, close & paste into the previous window	Enter
Pin / unpin	Ctrl + P
Delete selected entry	Delete
Clear all history	trash button (top-right)
Close	Esc

CLI:

linpaste list            # print recent history
linpaste list -q foo     # filter
linpaste clear           # wipe history (keeps pinned)
linpaste clear --all     # wipe everything
linpaste show            # open the popup
linpaste status          # check the capture extension is active

Requirements

Ubuntu/GNOME on Wayland, Python ≥ 3.10. System packages (installed by install.sh): wl-clipboard, python3-gi, gir1.2-gtk-4.0, gir1.2-adw-1.

Not yet supported

Arbitrary files, encryption-at-rest, snippets, and non-GNOME desktops — all planned. See ROADMAP.md for the full plan and priorities.

License

MIT