A simple Python tool for interacting with the macOS clipboard using PyObjC.

• List available clipboard types
• Dump HTML content from clipboard to file

I recently encountered a situation where I couldn't view some content on my clipboard in my editor or by using pbpaste. I learned that on macOS, if the clipboard content doesn't specifically contain the public.utf8-plain-text type, then pbpaste will not display it.

This repo helps to inspect and extract clipboard content.

You can create a bookmarklet in your browser to test this tool. Use the following JavaScript code to copy HTML content to the clipboard that is missing the public.utf8-plain-text type.

javascript: (async () => {
  const blob = new Blob(["<b>Injected HTML</b>"], { type: "text/html" });
  await navigator.clipboard.write([new ClipboardItem({ "text/html": blob })]);
  alert("Clipboard set!");
})();

• Python 3.13+
• PyObjC (installed automatically via dependencies)
• uv (recommended package manager)

Using uv (recommended):

git clone https://github.com/mdmartinez/clipboard-tools.git
cd clipboard-tools
uv sync

Or using pip:

git clone https://github.com/mdmartinez/clipboard-tools.git
cd clipboard-tools
pip install .

Show all available clipboard data types:

uv run info

public.file-url
CorePasteboardFlavorType 0x6675726C
dyn.ah62d4rv4gu8y6y4grf0gn5xbrzw1gydcr7u1e3cytf2gn
NSFilenamesPboardType
dyn.ah62d4rv4gu8yc6durvwwaznwmuuha2pxsvw0e55bsmwca7d3sbwu
Apple URL pasteboard type
com.apple.finder.noderef
fndf
public.utf16-external-plain-text
CorePasteboardFlavorType 0x75743136
public.utf8-plain-text
NSStringPboardType
com.apple.icns
CorePasteboardFlavorType 0x69636E73
public.tiff
NeXT TIFF v4.0 pasteboard type

Extract HTML content from clipboard and save to clipboard.html:

uv run dump

Will attempt to default to clipboard.txt if no HTML content is found.

• get_clipboard_types.py – Lists clipboard types using AppKit
• dump_clipboard_content.py – Extracts HTML content from clipboard
• pyproject.toml – Project configuration and dependencies

MIT License

The CLI tool pbv can also be used to view clipboard content when public.utf8-plain-text is missing. This tool is more convenient as a direct replacement for pbpaste.