macOS Sequential Copy Paste pbcopy pbpaste shell script. Start it and copy some things. Press Ctrl+c and you get the list all things you copied. #macos #clipboard #sequential #paste #pbpaste #pbcopy #bash #shell

equential-paste-recording.md

macOS Sequential Copy Paste pbcopy pbpaste shell script

Start it and copy some things, then press Ctrl+c and you get a list of all things you copied.

~/.bin/sequential-paste-recording

#!/usr/bin/env bash

list=()
last=""

echo "Starting sequential paste recording of clipboard copying"
echo "Press Ctrl+c when done, and all copied things will be returned"

on_exit() {
	echo "${#list[@]} clipboard copy calls recorded"
	echo
	for item in "${list[@]}"; do
		echo "$item"
	done
}

trap on_exit EXIT

pbcopy < /dev/null

while true; do
	now="$(pbpaste)"

	if [[ "$last" != "$now" ]]; then
		list+=("$now")
		last="$now"
		echo "Adding $now"
	fi

	sleep 0.1
done

chmod u+x ~/.bin/sequential-paste-recording

$ sequential-paste-recording
Starting sequential paste recording of clipboard copying
Press Ctrl+c when done, and all copied things will be returned
Adding foo
Adding bar
Adding baz
^C
3 clipboard copy calls recorded

foo
bar
baz

To try it I did

echo foo | pbcopy
echo bar | pbcopy
echo baz | pbcopy

This is an initial version. Could make it automatically put everythinig in clipboard while copying. But should probably try this simple variant first.