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I'm searching for an application that can show me the details of the content of the clipboard.

When copying some data into the clipboard, the data is associated with a specific MIME type. Normal text is text/plain, binary data can be copied as application/octet-stream, etc. I have an application that copies binary data, tagging it as its own MIME type, and I would like to see what type it is, and what data it has.

I can't just paste the clipboard content into a target notepad-like application, because the target expects the MIME type of the clipboard object to be text/plain.

An application that enumerates all currently existing MIME types of objects in the clipboard would also suffice.

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2 Answers 2

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Use xclip:

xclip -o -t TARGETS

to see all the available types. For example:

  1. copy something from you web browser
  2. investigate available types
 $ xclip -o -t TARGETS TIMESTAMP TARGETS MULTIPLE text/html text/_moz_htmlcontext text/_moz_htmlinfo UTF8_STRING COMPOUND_TEXT TEXT STRING text/x-moz-url-priv
  1. get the contents for the one you're interested in: xclip -o -t text/html
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    The default clipboard accessed by xclip is "primary". Use -selection clipboard to see explicitly copied content. See superuser.com/questions/90257/…. Commented May 15, 2020 at 16:26
  • This shows the error "Error: target TARGETS not available" if an image is on the clipboard Commented Mar 13 at 17:20
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OK, I've actually written some code that does what I need. Good thing it's pretty easy in Qt.

Building info is at the bottom of this post.

xclipshow.cpp:

#include <QApplication> #include <QTimer> #include <QClipboard> #include <QMimeData> #include <QDebug> #include <QStringList> class App: public QObject { Q_OBJECT private: void main(); public: App(): QObject() { } public slots: void qtmain() { main(); emit finished(); } signals: void finished(); }; void App::main() { QClipboard *clip = QApplication::clipboard(); for(QString& formatName: clip->mimeData()->formats()) { std::string s; s = formatName.toStdString(); QByteArray arr = clip->mimeData()->data(formatName); printf("name=%s, size=%d: ", s.c_str(), arr.size()); for(int i = 0; i < arr.size(); i++) { printf("%02x ", (unsigned char) arr.at(i)); } printf("\n"); } } int main(int argc, char **argv) { QApplication app(argc, argv); App *task = new App(); QObject::connect(task, SIGNAL(finished()), & app, SLOT(quit())); QTimer::singleShot(0, task, SLOT(qtmain())); return app.exec(); } #include "xclipshow.moc"

CMakeLists.txt:

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.0.0) project(xclipshow) find_package(Qt5Widgets) set(CMAKE_AUTOMOC ON) set(CMAKE_INCLUDE_CURRENT_DIR ON) set(SRC xclipshow.cpp) add_definitions(-std=c++11) add_executable(xclipshow ${SRC}) qt5_use_modules(xclipshow Widgets Core)

Building info as requested in the comment by @slm: it depends on the system you're using. This code needs Qt5 and CMake to compile. If you have both, all you need to do is to run:

BUILD_DIR=<path to an empty temporary dir, which will contain the executable file> SRC_DIR=<path to the directory which contains xclipshow.cpp> $ cd $BUILD_DIR $ cmake $SRC_DIR $ make

or 'gmake' if you're on FreeBSD, or 'mingw32-make' if you're on Windows, etc.

If you don't have Qt5 or CMake, you can try to get away with Qt4 and manual compilation:

$ moc xclipshow.cpp > xclipshow.moc $ g++ xclipshow.cpp -o xclipshow `pkg-config --cflags --libs QtGui` -I. --std=c++11

If you're getting information about invalid --std=c++11 option, try --std=c++0x instead, and consider upgrading your compiler ;).

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    Thanks for posting this solution. Could you add a bit of detail about how to compile it for future visitors? Commented Oct 20, 2014 at 11:31
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    @slm, antonone, I've simplified/shortened your code, should also be easier to compile that way: gist.github.com/gsauthof/c955f727606f4a5b0cc2 Commented Jan 27, 2016 at 22:01

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