Terminal-first clipboard history manager. A tiny background watcher records everything you copy; a fuzzy-search picker pastes it back — 100% local, no daemon you don't control, no cloud, no account.
$ clipcrate pick # fuzzy-search your clipboard history in a TUI
$ clipcrate list # newest entries with age & size
$ clipcrate get - | pbcopy
Most history managers are GUI apps (Maccy, CopyQ, Ditto). Terminal people keep
switching to the mouse for one keystroke of value. clipcrate is built
for the terminal:
- Composable — every command reads/writes stdin/stdout pipes cleanly:
clipcrate get - | jq .,clipcrate add < file. - Cross-platform by construction — one Rust binary for macOS, Linux (X11 and Wayland) and Windows.
- Local-first privacy — plain JSONL on your disk, atomic rewrites,
deny-patterns so secrets never touch storage (e.g.
^sk-). - Scriptable service — ships an installer for launchd / systemd / Windows
Registry autostart; or run
watchunder tmux yourself.
# from source (Rust 1.85+)
cargo install --git https://github.com/FrankFu916/clipcrate
# or grab a prebuilt binary from Releases and put it on your PATHclipcrate watch # start recording (Ctrl+C stops)
clipcrate install-service # …or let launchd/systemd/Windows do it at login
clipcrate list # what did I copy?
clipcrate pick > file # choose interactively, redirect anywhere
clipcrate clear --last # oops| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| type | fuzzy search |
| ↑ / ↓, PgUp/PgDn | move selection |
| Enter | print selection to stdout |
| Esc / Ctrl+C | cancel |
| Ctrl+P | pin/unpin (pins never expire) |
| Delete | remove entry |
pick prints without a trailing newline, so cd "$(clipcrate pick)" just
works.
Copied screenshots are stored as PNGs (content-hashed, deduplicated) next to
the history file. pick copies the image back to the clipboard;
get - > shot.png writes bytes.
clipcrate pick [--newline]
clipcrate list [--limit N] [--json]
clipcrate get <id|- >
clipcrate copy <id>
clipcrate add [TEXT | --file F] # or pipe stdin
clipcrate clear (<id> | --last | --all)
clipcrate pin <id>
clipcrate export [--out FILE] # JSONL + images/
clipcrate import [--file FILE] # dedups by content, safe to re-run
clipcrate config show | set <k> <v> | deny-add <regex>
clipcrate doctor
clipcrate watch [--poll-ms N]
clipcrate install-service [--poll-ms N] | uninstall-service | service-status
$(clipcrate config show) — file lives in the data dir
(~/Library/Application Support/clipcrate on macOS), override with
$CLIPCRATE_HOME.
max_entries = 1000 # unpinned cap, LRU eviction
poll_ms = 700 # watcher polling interval
min_length = 1 # ignore shorter clips
max_length = 1000000 # ignore longer clips
deny_patterns = [] # regexes that are NEVER recorded
dedup = "bump" # bump | update | all
preview_lines = 8 # picker preview heightKeep secrets out of history:
clipcrate config deny-add 'sk-[A-Za-z0-9]{10,}'
clipcrate config deny-add 'ghp_[A-Za-z0-9]{20,}'Config changes are hot-reloaded by a running watcher.
Everything lives under $CLIPCRATE_HOME (or the platform default):
history.jsonl, config.toml, images/. No network access, ever. Delete the
directory and there is nothing left to know about you.
cargo test # 25 unit + 12 end-to-end CLI tests
cargo fmt && cargo clippyPlatform notes: X11 builds need libxcb; Wayland needs wl-clipboard-rs
runtime protocols already present in desktop sessions. macOS needs no extra
deps. Windows uses the native clipboard API.
MIT — see LICENSE.
文档（中文）：README.zh-CN.md