remoclipbo

Overview

remoclipbo securely copies the contents of your clipboard to a remote machine.

Requirements

• macOS using bash
• pbcopy and pbpaste commands must be available
• SSH access to the remote machine

See remoclipbo GitHub repository for how to automate it with shortcuts!

Installation

1. Download remoclipbo and place it in your $PATH (e.g., ~/bin/).
2. Make it executable:

   chmod +x ~/bin/remoclipbo

3. Edit the REMOTE variable in the script to point to the remote host.

   REMOTE='<user@host>:~/'

Usage

First make sure to EDIT the remoclipbo script to update the REMOTE variable at the top of the script to point to the user@host you want to copy to. Also make sure remoclipbo is in your $PATH and executable.

Copy clipboard contents to remote machine

remoclipbo

This will paste the contents of your clipboard to ~/remote-clipboard.txt
and then scp it to the remote machine's ~/remote-clipboard.txt.

Copy and clear the remote clipboard after a delay

remoclipbo --clear-after-secs[=<n secs>]

This will also clear the remote clipboard after <n secs>.
If no value is provided, it defaults to 15 seconds.

Retrieve local ~/remote-clipboard.txt contents into local clipboard

remoclipbo -c

This will read ~/remote-clipboard.txt and copy its contents to the clipboard.
Useful if you ran this from another machine and want to put the contents
of ~/remote-clipboard.txt into your clipboard.
Ideally, you will automate this part. See README.md.

Verify remote clipboard contents without copying

remoclipbo -verify

This will print the contents of the remote machine’s ~/remote-clipboard.txt
without copying anything. Useful for verifying what was sent to the remote.

Automation with launchd

To automatically update the clipboard when remote-clipboard.txt changes, create a launchd plist file:

vim ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.user.remoteclipboard.plist

(Or whichever editor your prefer, if not vim).

Then paste the following (and make sure to edit the 2 paths with yours):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.user.remoteclipboard</string>

    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/Users/<your_username>/bin/remoclipbo</string>
        <string>-c</string>
    </array>

    <key>WatchPaths</key>
    <array>
        <string>/Users/<your_username>/remote-clipboard.txt</string>
    </array>

    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

Load the launch agent

launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.user.remoteclipboard.plist

To reload after editing:

launchctl unload ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.user.remoteclipboard.plist
launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.user.remoteclipboard.plist

Raycast Integration

NOTE: You don't have to use raycast, if you prefer other keyboard shortcut apps.

In Settings>Extensions>Script Commands click Add Directories, then add ~/.config/raycast/scripts/remoclipbo.sh and mkdir that locally and put my bash scripts in there and make them executable. Example of calling ~/bin/remoclipbo:

#!/bin/bash
# Required parameters:
# @raycast.schemaVersion 1
# @raycast.title Secure Copy Clipboard
# @raycast.mode silent

"$HOME/bin/remoclipbo"

Note that the comments in the raycast/scripts/remoclipbo.sh file seem to be required, and/or restart Raycast, before it will detect the script. It will then show the script under Settings>Extensions>Script Commands so you can add a hotkey to it. I map it to HYPER+C

Note: There's need to run 'Create Script Command' unless wanting to publish it publicly

• Hyper+H mapped to Clipboard History to see the clipboard contents.
• Hyper+R mapped to Remote-clipboard.txt quicklink to see remote-clipboard.txt.

Notes

• Ensure SSH keys are set up for passwordless access.
• Adjust sleep 1 in the script if clipboard contents are not transferring reliably.
• Use different REMOTE values for work and home machines to avoid conflicts.

License

MIT License