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I copied some text and want to search through it using less. I wonder how I can directly use less on my clipboard content without having it saved first into a file or being echod etc.

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3 Answers 3

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Use xclip or xsel (which should available on any Linux distribution and in BSD ports).

For the X11 selection that is automatically copied when you select something with the mouse:

xsel | less xclip -o | less

For the X11 clipboard that is copied explicitly (typically with Ctrl+C):

xsel -b | less xclip -o -selection c | less

On macOS, use pbpaste.

pbpaste | less

See Copy the contents of a file into the clipboard without displaying its contents for more information.

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Here's a more low-tech way:

You've copied something, right? So if you hit Shift-Insert or whatever, it will paste, right?

$ cat | less

Now press Shift+Insert then Ctrl+C

Voila! You can now scroll up and down and search and do whatever you want with less, operating on the clipboard text you pasted in.

Note that Ctrl+D will not work to terminate the input to cat in this case. I'm not sure why, but it didn't on FreeBSD nor on Ubuntu.

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  • the simpliest way and no need of any tools Commented Oct 24, 2019 at 8:01
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Under X11 this won't work because of the way the clipboards are integrated.

First of all, there are two clipboards in use:

  1. Something you selected
  2. Something you copied with a hotkey (like ctrl + c)

Programs can use both or either of those clipboards.

The whole process works a bit like this:

Client A X Server Client B ---------------------------------------------------------------- (1) | I own selection FOO! | | -------------------> | | Write sel. FOO to BAR! | (2) | <--------------------- | | Write sel. FOO to BAR! | | <--------------------- | | Here is FOO. | -------------------------:-----------------------> | Okay, got it. | | <------------------------:------------------------ |

(source)

If you want to use clipboard content in your terminal workflow, you could use something like xclip and alias them to a command of your choice.

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  • I'm not sure what you're referring to in the first sentence, but the existence of xclip shows that it's possible. Commented Oct 23, 2019 at 18:44
  • it works if there is a program acting as someone pasting the stuff and providing it in a file or some other way Commented Oct 24, 2019 at 8:56

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