The clipboard¶
Copy on one device, paste on another. Text, formatted text, images and files all travel; small content is pushed the moment you copy, large content is fetched only when you paste it, and nothing is kept anywhere but on your devices.
What travels¶
| Content | How |
|---|---|
| Text | Pushed to every device as you copy, up to 512 KiB |
| Formatted text (HTML) | Pushed beside the text, within the same bound |
| Images (PNG) | Pushed when small; announced when large, and fetched when an application pastes |
| Files and folders copied in a file manager | Always announced; fetched into a cache when pasted |
A device announces what it did not push and keeps the bytes ready for one hour, or until you copy something else, whichever comes first. An announced image or file that is pasted after that is gone, and the paste fails; the text that came with it stays. Up to 64 MiB of announced content is kept per copy.
Linux¶
Copying and pasting work as they always do; the daemon watches the Wayland clipboard and
sets it when another device copies. A file manager that pastes a copied file list gets the
files fetched into $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/ligature/clipboard and pasted from there. Clipboard
history tools that read every selection as it appears (Omarchy's does) fetch a large image
the moment it is announced rather than when you paste.
macOS¶
The same, through the pasteboard, which the daemon checks four times a second. A copied
file list arrives as items Finder can paste; the files are fetched into
~/Library/Caches/org.ligatureprotocol.ligatured/clipboard and Finder copies them from
there. TextEdit pastes the first type it can read of what arrived.
Android¶
Receiving needs nothing: whatever you copy elsewhere is on the phone's clipboard while the node runs. Text and formatted text go on the clip itself. An image or a file list arrives as content the app serves, so pasting it in another app fetches the bytes from the device that copied them. Because few Android apps paste files, a copied file list also raises a notification whose Save puts the files in Downloads.
Sending is on your request, because Android lets an app read the clipboard only while it has the focus. Any of these sends what is on the clipboard:
- the Send clipboard quick-settings tile,
- the Send clipboard action on the Ligature notification,
- Send clipboard now on the app's screen,
- opening the app,
- Send to my devices in the share sheet, which sends the shared text after showing it to you.
Receive now on the app's screen asks your other devices for what they hold, for the case where the phone was off or out of reach when you copied.
On a ROM you built and signed yourself the app can hold the platform permission to read the clipboard in the background, and then every copy is sent as it happens; the screen reports "automatic (background read allowed)". An official LineageOS build cannot grant it. The app's README has the signing steps.
What stays where¶
The clipboard is never stored. A device keeps the current value in memory for its other devices to ask for, and a device that connects later asks for it, so a laptop that wakes up gets what you last copied on the phone. Fetched content is cached under the runtime directory and cleared when the clipboard changes and when the daemon starts.
From the command line¶
lpctl clipboard reads and sets the clipboard through the daemon, for checking that the
chain works: