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Comment by mig39

3 years ago

It's cool to use pbcopy and pbpaste with your phone! Copy some text on the phone, and you can pbpaste it onto the Mac command line. So cool.

22 comments

mig39

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nojs  3 years ago

It creeps me out when the clipboard is unexpectedly shared between my phone and computer. And since the feature seems to turn on randomly but not reliably when I want it to, I’d rather it just didn’t exist.

  • jacurtis  3 years ago

    I have a clipboard manager application called "Paste" (creative i know). Its an awesome app for a million reasons. But one thing I like is that it allows me to see and hear when my iphone copy worked.

    So I have it enabled so there is a sound when something goes into the clipboard. Even on my mac, I have come to rely on that audio feedback. But it has the added benefit that when I am using my phone in front of my computer and I copy something on my phone, I immediate (and it is impressively fast... maybe a 200ms delay), I hear the chime that something was added to my clipboard on my mac. So it gives you that good feedback that a copy "worked".

    You can also shift+cmd+V to see the clipboard history, which is another complimentary tool with universal clipboard because if a paste isn't working as expected you can see if the universal copy never "took" (as you mentioned it is semi-unreliable), or if it just got overridden. You can then use the navigator to paste the older item.

    • zackmorris  3 years ago

      I wonder if it's this one: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/paste-clipboard-manager/id9678...

      I've noticed that more and more apps on both macOS and iOS sniff the clipboard contents and randomly clobber it. I usually notice it in apps like Sourcetree, where I'll click something or do a certain action and suddenly I can't paste anymore. I even get a feel for it, like my mind detects the pattern that empties the clipboard so I sense when I can no longer paste, but I can't figure out concrete repeatable steps to make it happen. On iOS it's more random, and I feel like it's probably Facebook doing it, or maybe websites in Safari. I just assume that everything is spying on my clipboard contents now, hoping to log secrets/passwords and PII to sell to scammers.

      I have to say, this is one of the more disappointing developments from Apple, that they certainly must know by now about these clipboard shenanigans, but have done nothing to stop them. They need to implement permissions that deny all apps the ability to get/set the clipboard by default, and have an option to ask the user whether so-and-so app can access the clipboard (outside of normal copy/paste), every time with the option to allow always. And all clipboard access attempts should probably get logged somewhere.

      2 replies →

  • andrei_says_  3 years ago

    For me it’s one of the top benefits of the Apple ecosystem.

    The only drawback is that yes it only works most of the time. And when it doesn’t I get infuriated.

    Glitches happen without any change to settings or network on my side - it works now, and 5 min later doesn’t.

  • nomel  3 years ago

    > is unexpectedly shared between my phone and computer

    There was a prompt asking if I wanted to enable it, when I set up my phone/Mac. Same setup screen that asks if you want to enable location, Siri, etc.

  • pjot  3 years ago

    Make sure both your phone and computer have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth turned on.

    • MikeTheGreat  3 years ago

      I'm curious why the Bluetooth is required?

      Requiring WiFi makes (so the phone/computer is on a network and can communicate with the other devices), but what's the benefit of Bluetooth? Does it only work when the phone and computer are near each other?

      3 replies →

  • emmjay_  3 years ago

    Disabling Handoff is currently the only way to disable Universal Clipboard.

    * Mac: Go to System Preferences > General > uncheck Allow Handoff.

    * iPhone: Go to Settings > General > Handoff > uncheck Handoff.