Power Paste is a desktop clipboard history manager built with Tauri 2, Vue 3, and Rust. It focuses on a native-feeling workflow: watch clipboard changes in the background, open a compact panel with a global shortcut, then quickly search, preview, copy, edit, tag, or paste older items back into the last target application.

The current implementation is local-first. Clipboard history is stored in SQLite on the device, settings are persisted in settings.json, and phone transfer runs over a temporary local-network session served by the desktop app itself.

中文说明见 README.zh-CN.md。

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• Fast: open the panel with a global shortcut, quick-paste shortcut, or number shortcuts and bring previous clipboard content back in seconds
• Native-feeling: designed around desktop workflows instead of browser-like interaction patterns
• Good-looking: translucent surfaces, theme switching, and accent colors are part of the product value
• Meant to stay around: tray support, single-instance behavior, and update checks make it practical as an always-available companion

• Global shortcut to toggle the main history panel
• Quick paste shortcut: hold the shortcut to open the panel, cycle through items, then release to paste
• Capture text, link, image, and mixed clipboard content
• Search and filter by All, Pinned, Text, Image, and Mixed
• Pin important items and keep them out of bulk clear / retention cleanup
• Favorite items for an extra visual priority marker
• Finder-style color tags: up to 3 tags per item, with 7 fixed colors and customizable labels
• Edit plain-text history items in place
• Copy history items back to the system clipboard, or paste directly to the previous target app when supported
• Paste the first 10 visible items with Ctrl/Cmd + 1 through Ctrl/Cmd + 0
• Drag history items into other apps; images are dragged as native files when possible
• Hover image thumbnails to preview larger images
• Optional copy count and paste count statistics with smart sorting
• Local-network phone transfer for text, images, and files through a browser page opened by scanning a QR code
• WebDAV history sync with system credential storage for the remote password
• Settings for language, theme, accent color, launch on startup, sound, history retention, image-size limit, copy/paste stats, transfer directory, tag labels, debug mode, global shortcut, and quick paste shortcut
• Tray integration, single-instance behavior, background startup, automatic update checks, and manual update checks
• Custom in-app confirmation dialogs instead of system confirm prompts for destructive actions

• Compact transparent panel with keyboard-first navigation
• Accurate item count for the current query and filter state
• Enter pastes the selected item on supported platforms
• Ctrl/Cmd + C copies the selected item back to the clipboard
• Ctrl/Cmd + 1 to Ctrl/Cmd + 0 paste the first 10 visible items directly
• The first 10 visible items show keycap-style number markers next to their timestamps
• Double-click can trigger direct paste when the current platform supports it
• Items can be dragged from the history list into other apps
• Links can be opened in the system default browser
• Clear History removes only unpinned items

• Text: searchable, editable, copyable, directly pasteable on supported platforms
• Link: detected from copied URLs and openable in the default browser
• Image: thumbnail preview, hover preview, drag as a native file when possible, and clipboard replay on supported platforms
• Mixed: combined text + image payloads where the backend can preserve or replay them

• Each history item can carry up to 3 tags
• Built-in tag colors match the Finder-style palette: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, gray
• Tag color and display name are separate
• Tag names are editable from settings
• Tag filters are available directly in the main panel

• Start a temporary LAN transfer session from the desktop app
• Scan a QR code with a phone to open a browser-based transfer page
• No mobile app is required
• Send text and files from desktop to phone
• Send text, images, and files from phone to desktop
• Files received on desktop are saved to the configured download directory
• Desktop-side transfer history can open or reveal received files
• Session status shows connected / disconnected state and is cleaned up after idle timeout

• Sync clipboard history through a configured WebDAV endpoint
• Store the WebDAV password in the system credential store instead of settings.json
• Use .power-paste-sync under the configured remote folder for app-owned sync data
• Retry transient WebDAV requests up to 3 attempts
• Keep WebDAV sync state visible in settings, including manual sync, test connection, and auto sync controls

The settings view is split into these categories:

• General
• History
• Sync
• Transfer
• Shortcuts
• Advanced
• About

Current configurable options include:

• Language: Simplified Chinese / English
• Theme mode: Light / Dark / System
• Accent color: Ocean / Amber / Jade / Rose
• Launch on startup
• Background startup when launched automatically
• Copy sound on capture / replay
• Maximum history item count
• Maximum retention days for unpinned history
• Maximum stored image size
• Copy count statistics toggle (tracks repeat-copy usage and affects sort order)
• Paste count statistics toggle (tracks direct-paste usage and affects sort order)
• Tag display names
• LAN transfer download directory
• WebDAV sync endpoint, username, remote directory, auto sync, and credential management
• Global shortcut and quick paste shortcut recording / clearing
• Debug mode

Update checks are not configured as a regular setting. The app checks for updates on startup, shows an update badge in the UI when a new version is available, and also exposes a manual tray action.

• Windows: primary target platform, and currently the strongest platform for mixed clipboard replay and target-aware direct paste
• macOS: direct paste depends on system Accessibility / Automation permission
• Linux: direct paste depends on X11 + xdotool or Wayland + wtype; when the required tool is missing, the UI now shows an explicit install hint instead of a generic unsupported message; mixed replay still degrades to a single preferred payload

• xdotool and wtype are optional runtime dependencies. They are only required for direct paste back into the previous target app.
• In X11 sessions, install xdotool to enable direct paste.
• In Wayland sessions, install wtype to enable direct paste.
• If the required tool is missing, Power Paste will keep copy-back available and show a targeted installation hint for the current session type.

If direct paste still reports missing Accessibility or Automation permission after upgrading from an older build, macOS may still associate the permission record with the previous app bundle. Re-authorize Power Paste with these steps:

1. Quit Power Paste.
2. Run:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Power\ Paste.app

3. Open System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accessibility and toggle Power Paste off, then on again.
4. Open System Settings > Privacy & Security > Automation and re-enable Power Paste if it appears there.
5. Start Power Paste again and retry direct paste.

• History uses SQLite as the single source of truth
• Frontend state is event-driven and does not replace SQLite as the canonical store
• Settings are persisted in settings.json
• Received LAN transfer files are stored in the configured download folder
• Main-panel window size is persisted separately from the settings-panel size
• WebDAV history sync stores remote data under an app-owned .power-paste-sync folder and treats SQLite as the local source of truth

• Vue 3
• Vue Router
• Vite
• Composition API based composables

• Tauri 2
• Rust
• tauri-plugin-global-shortcut
• tauri-plugin-autostart
• tauri-plugin-single-instance
• tauri-plugin-updater
• tauri-plugin-sql with SQLite
• tauri-plugin-clipboard-next
• tauri-plugin-dialog
• tiny_http for the temporary phone transfer server

• Windows: Win32 APIs, WebView2, PowerShell helpers
• macOS: AppKit / Objective-C bindings for native integration
• Linux: desktop automation tools for direct paste fallback

• Node.js 18+
• pnpm 10+
• Rust 1.77.2+

Linux direct paste also requires one of:

• xdotool in an X11 session
• wtype in a Wayland session

Common installation examples:

# Ubuntu / Debian
sudo apt install xdotool
sudo apt install wtype
# Fedora
sudo dnf install xdotool
sudo dnf install wtype
# Arch Linux
sudo pacman -S xdotool
sudo pacman -S wtype

Windows development also requires:

• Windows 10 or Windows 11
• Microsoft WebView2 Runtime

Install dependencies:

pnpm install

Run the frontend only:

pnpm dev

Run the Tauri desktop app:

pnpm tauri dev

Build the frontend:

pnpm build

Run Rust checks:

cd src-tauri
cargo check

Build desktop bundles:

pnpm tauri build

The repository contains two GitHub Actions workflows:

• verify.yml: runs on normal push / pull request traffic and checks frontend build, Rust tests, and release-mode compilation on Windows, Linux, and macOS
• release.yml: runs on version tags and performs real cross-platform Tauri release packaging

Application data is stored in the Tauri app-local-data directory.

Typical persisted data includes:

• SQLite history database
• Stored text, rich text, image payloads, and tag metadata
• Original bytes for uploaded images when preserved
• Files received through LAN transfer
• settings.json

The project no longer relies on a plain history.json file as the primary history store.

.
├── src/
│ ├── components/ # Reusable Vue UI components
│ ├── composables/ # Frontend state and interaction logic
│ ├── router/ # Route declarations
│ ├── services/ # Tauri invoke/event wrappers
│ ├── styles/ # Shared application styles
│ ├── utils/ # Frontend helpers and constants
│ └── views/ # Screen-level views
├── src-tauri/
│ ├── src/commands/ # Tauri command entrypoints grouped by domain
│ ├── src/clipboard/ # Clipboard capture and replay backends
│ ├── src/lan_receiver.rs
│ ├── src/repository.rs
│ ├── src/runtime.rs
│ ├── src/storage.rs
│ ├── src/update.rs
│ └── src/usecases.rs
└── scripts/ # Local development helper scripts

If you find Power Paste helpful, consider supporting the project:

Your support helps maintain and improve Power Paste. Thank you!

This project is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0.

See LICENSE for the full text.

If you modify and deploy this project for users over a network, AGPLv3 requires you to provide the corresponding source code of that modified version to those users.