Is there a default clipboard history in Ubuntu? If there is, how can I access it?

Question

Is there a default clipboard history in Ubuntu 20.04 or later? If there is, how can I access it? I know there are lots of available applications for saving clipboard history in the default Ubuntu repositories.

Answer 1

You can give "CopyQ" a try, from Ubuntu Software store.

Answer 2

There isn't a default clipboard history in 20.04, just the current item in the clipboard or nothing if nothing has been copied to the clipboard. If nothing has been copied to the clipboard, the clipboard is empty. If something has been copied to the clipboard then by default the clipboard contains the last item that was copied to it.

Pasting a selected text snippet with your middle mouse button is completely separate from the normal clipboard. Selecting text does not copy it to your clipboard. This quick method of pasting only works with the middle mouse button. For more information visit GNOME help Middle-click.

Answer 3

I am now using ClipIt - https://github.com/CristianHenzel/ClipIt in my Ubuntu 20.04 ever since I have posted this question and am happy with it, everything is okay in terms of performance, features and etc. You can install it via ubuntu software or flathub or just click github link and follow the installation instruction they have provided in their github repo.

Answer 4

I've released a clipboard manager Gnome extension which is a rewrite of Clipboard Indicator with vastly improved performance, new features, and bug fixes.

Answer 5

GPaste

You can download it with

sudo apt install gnome-shell-extensions-gpaste

By default the history will by shown by pressing <Ctrl><Alt>H, it can also be called with the command gpaste-client show-history

Answer 6

Go to https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/779/clipboard-indicator/ and install it.

Make sure you have the Firefox add-on of Gnome-shells website https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/gnome-shell-integration/?utm_source=addons.mozilla.org&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=search

You will have a clipboard on the top bar you can access. It resets after shutdown by the way.

Answer 7

I really like gnome-shell-pano.

You need to install libgda and gsound for this extension to work.

sudo apt install gir1.2-gda-5.0 gir1.2-gsound-1.0

Answer 8

Go for Clipman if you are using Xfce.

Answer 9

Even if the original question is Ubuntu related it should be added here that this topic looks somewhat different for Kubuntu users. On Kubuntu there exist with Klipper an nice little in-built tool which also offers a small clipboard history.

So I have simply opened with an editor like Kate the history2.lst file in ${HOME}/.local/share/klipper and was able to recover my lost text.

Note, this was tested on Kubuntu 24.04 LTS but should work on any KDE Plasma based distro.

An additional askubuntu source is available here.