Clipz ✂️ — Clipboard Notch Hub

Clipz is a modern, lightweight, high-performance desktop clipboard manager and productivity hub for Windows and macOS. Designed around a sleek Dynamic Island / Top Notch paradigm, Clipz listens for clipboard events in real-time, categorizes items, and provides lightning-fast full-text search. Sensitive items are encrypted at rest on both platforms; see Security for exactly what that protects against.

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✨ Features

• 🏝️ Dynamic Island Notch UI: Floating top-center interface with smooth glassmorphism styling, hover-to-expand drawer, and keyboard accessibility.
• ⚡ Real-Time Monitoring: Low-overhead Rust clipboard loop. On Windows it uses the native clipboard sequence number; on macOS it polls the pasteboard.
• 🔍 SQLite FTS5 Full-Text Search: Instant, sub-millisecond search across your entire clipboard history.
• 🏷️ Smart Categorization & Filters: Auto-detects plain text, code snippets, web URLs, and sensitive credentials/passwords.
• 🛡️ Enterprise-Grade Security:
  • Windows: sensitive items are sealed with the native Data Protection API (DPAPI). The key belongs to your Windows account and never touches the disk.
  • macOS: sensitive items are sealed with AES-256-GCM. The key lives in secret.key next to the database, readable only by your user account (0600). Neither platform ever asks you for a password.
  • What this does not stop: software already running as you can ask the OS to unseal a clip, exactly as Clipz does. Encryption at rest protects the database file itself — in backups, on a shared disk, or in another account's hands.
  • RAM TTL Protection: High-security clip memory cleanup after 60 seconds.
• 🎯 Paste Tracking & Source Apps: Tracks active target windows and source applications.
• ⌨️ Keyboard & Power User Friendly:
  • Arrow Up / Arrow Down: Navigate clipboard history
  • Enter: Instant copy selected clip to active clipboard
  • Esc: Collapse notch drawer
  • Filter pills for quick focus (All, Text, Code, Links, 🔒 Sensitive)

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🛠️ Technology Stack

Layer	Technology
Frontend	HTML5, Modern CSS3 (Vanilla Glassmorphism), TypeScript
Build Tooling	Vite, TypeScript compiler (tsc)
Desktop Framework	Tauri v2 (@tauri-apps/api, @tauri-apps/cli)
Backend Core	Rust, windows crate (Win32 API integration)
Database	SQLite3 with FTS5 (rusqlite)
Security	Windows DPAPI · AES-256-GCM on macOS with an owner-only key file

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💾 Where your clips are stored

The database lives in the per-user data folder for the platform, never beside the executable:

Platform	Location
Windows	%APPDATA%\clipz\clipz.db
macOS	~/Library/Application Support/Clipz/clipz.db
Linux	$XDG_DATA_HOME/clipz/clipz.db, else ~/.local/share/clipz/clipz.db

Delete that folder to wipe your clipboard history. The file is a plain SQLite database: ordinary clips are stored as-is and anyone with access to your account can read them. Sensitive clips are the exception — only the 🔒 Password Protected mask is stored in plain text, with the secret held sealed alongside it.

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📋 Prerequisites

Before running or building Clipz on Windows, ensure you have installed:

1. Node.js (v18.x or higher) & npm: Download Node.js
2. Rust Toolchain (1.75+): Install Rustup
3. C++ Build Tools: Microsoft Visual C++ Build Tools / Visual Studio Community Edition with "Desktop development with C++" workload.

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🚀 Getting Started

1. Clone & Switch to Development Branch

git clone https://github.com/56steve/clipz.git
cd clipz
git checkout development

2. Install Dependencies

npm install

3. Run in Development Mode

To launch the desktop application in live dev mode (with Hot-Module Reloading):

npx tauri dev

Or run Vite frontend preview only:

npm run dev

4. Build Production Executable

To compile the standalone Windows binary (.exe / .msi / bundle):

npx tauri build

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📁 Directory Structure

clipz/
├── index.html            # Main Notch HTML Shell
├── styles.css            # Dynamic Island & Glassmorphism Styles
├── tsconfig.json         # TypeScript configuration
├── vite.config.ts        # Vite build & bundle configuration
├── package.json          # Node dependencies & NPM scripts
├── README.md             # Project documentation
├── src/                  # Frontend Application Logic
│   └── main.ts           # Clipz UI event listeners & Tauri invoke bindings
└── src-tauri/            # Tauri Rust Backend & Win32 Integration
    ├── Cargo.toml        # Rust dependencies & metadata
    ├── tauri.conf.json   # Tauri v2 window & permissions config
    └── src/
        ├── main.rs       # Entrypoint
        ├── lib.rs        # Tauri setup & command router
        ├── clipboard.rs  # Win32 clipboard monitoring thread
        ├── db.rs         # SQLite FTS5 database engine
        ├── paste_tracker.rs # Foreground window & paste detector
        └── security.rs   # Sensitive-clip detection and encryption at rest

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🌳 Branching & Workflow

• main: Stable release branch.
• development: Active feature development branch (Current active workspace).

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📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.