autocutsel

X11/Wayland clipboard synchronization tool. Keeps the cutbuffer, CLIPBOARD, and PRIMARY selections in sync.

This is an actively maintained fork of sigmike/autocutsel.

Installation

Pre-built packages are available via the openSUSE Build Service.

openSUSE Tumbleweed

sudo zypper addrepo https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:Pihaar:autocutsel/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/home:Pihaar:autocutsel.repo
sudo zypper refresh
sudo zypper install autocutsel

openSUSE Leap 15.6

sudo zypper addrepo https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:Pihaar:autocutsel/15.6/home:Pihaar:autocutsel.repo
sudo zypper refresh
sudo zypper install autocutsel

Fedora 43

sudo dnf config-manager --add-repo https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:Pihaar:autocutsel/Fedora_43/home:Pihaar:autocutsel.repo
sudo dnf install autocutsel

RHEL 9

RHEL is not available on OBS due to licensing. Use the binary-compatible RockyLinux 9 repository instead:

sudo dnf config-manager --add-repo https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:Pihaar:autocutsel/RockyLinux_9/home:Pihaar:autocutsel.repo
sudo dnf install autocutsel

Debian 13

echo 'deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/home_Pihaar_autocutsel.gpg] https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/Pihaar:/autocutsel/Debian_13/ /' | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/home_Pihaar_autocutsel.list
curl -fsSL https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/Pihaar:/autocutsel/Debian_13/Release.key | gpg --dearmor | sudo tee /etc/apt/keyrings/home_Pihaar_autocutsel.gpg > /dev/null
sudo apt update
sudo apt install autocutsel

Packages for additional distributions (Arch, CentOS Stream, RockyLinux, SUSE SLFO, and more) are listed on the OBS project page.

Features (beyond upstream)

• -mouseonly — sync PRIMARY to CLIPBOARD on mouse selection only, with automatic reverse sync (CLIPBOARD to PRIMARY) for browser copy buttons and application clipboard writes
• Wayland auto-detection — direct selection sync when cutbuffer is unavailable
• -encoding — charset conversion for VNC clients with legacy encodings
• Systemd user service — template unit with sandboxing and per-instance configuration
• Single-instance lock — prevents duplicate processes per selection
• PRIMARY clear — clears stale PRIMARY holders (e.g. xterm highlighting) after CLIPBOARD sync

Building from source

Dependencies

Fedora/RHEL/CentOS:

sudo dnf install gcc make autoconf automake libtool pkg-config \
  libX11-devel libXt-devel libXmu-devel libXaw-devel libXext-devel \
  libinput-devel systemd-devel

Ubuntu/Debian:

sudo apt-get install gcc make autoconf automake libtool pkg-config \
  libx11-dev libxt-dev libxmu-dev libxaw7-dev libxext-dev \
  libinput-dev libudev-dev

openSUSE:

sudo zypper install gcc make autoconf automake libtool pkg-config \
  libX11-devel libXt-devel libXmu-devel libXaw-devel libXext-devel \
  libinput-devel systemd-devel

Build & install

./bootstrap
./configure
make
make check        # run tests
sudo make install

Usage

Classic setup

The traditional approach uses two instances to keep CLIPBOARD, PRIMARY, and the cutbuffer in sync:

autocutsel &                        # CLIPBOARD ↔ cutbuffer
autocutsel -selection PRIMARY &     # PRIMARY ↔ cutbuffer

Add -fork to daemonize, or use the systemd service for automatic startup.

On Wayland (detected automatically via WAYLAND_DISPLAY), the cutbuffer is not available and selections are synced directly. A single instance is sufficient:

autocutsel -selection PRIMARY &

Options

Option	Description	Default
-selection NAME	X selection to operate on (CLIPBOARD, PRIMARY)	CLIPBOARD
-cutbuffer N	Cutbuffer number (0–7), not used on Wayland	0
-pause MS	Polling interval in milliseconds	500
-buttonup	Only sync when mouse button is released (helps with LibreOffice and similar)	off
-fork	Daemonize (run in background)	off
-mouseonly	Bidirectional: mouse selection syncs PRIMARY→CLIPBOARD, external CLIPBOARD writes (browser copy, Ctrl+C) sync back to PRIMARY. Requires libinput, input group	off
-encoding CHARSET	Convert between UTF-8 and the given charset (e.g. WINDOWS-1252 for VNC)	off
-debug	Print debug output	off
-verbose	Report version and sync events	off

Mouse-only mode

With -mouseonly, only mouse-based text selection is synced from PRIMARY to CLIPBOARD — keyboard selections (Shift+Arrow etc.) are ignored. Additionally, external CLIPBOARD writes (e.g. browser "copy" buttons using the Clipboard API, or Ctrl+C in applications) are automatically synced back to PRIMARY, making the clipboard content available for middle-click paste. This requires access to input devices via libinput:

sudo usermod -aG input $USER   # re-login required
autocutsel -selection PRIMARY -mouseonly

Only a single instance is needed (unlike the classic two-instance setup).

cutsel utility

cutsel is a companion tool for inspecting and manipulating selections and cutbuffers:

cutsel cut                    # print cutbuffer content
cutsel cut "text"             # set cutbuffer content
cutsel sel                    # print CLIPBOARD content
cutsel sel -selection PRIMARY # print PRIMARY content
cutsel targets                # list selection targets offered by the owner

Systemd user service

autocutsel ships a template unit autocutsel@.service with example argument files.

# Create config directory and copy example
mkdir -p ~/.config/autocutsel
cp /usr/share/doc/autocutsel/examples/mouseonly.args ~/.config/autocutsel/

# Enable and start
systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable --now autocutsel@mouseonly

# View logs
journalctl --user -u 'autocutsel@*'

Available configurations in examples/:

File	Description
mouseonly.args	Sync PRIMARY to CLIPBOARD on mouse selection only
clipboard.args	Sync CLIPBOARD with cutbuffer (traditional, pair with primary)
primary.args	Sync PRIMARY with cutbuffer (traditional, pair with clipboard)

Known Issues

• Xvfb cutbuffer cross-process visibility: On some Xvfb versions (confirmed on 1.20.11), XStoreBuffer from one process is not visible to XFetchBuffer from another process. This does not affect real Xorg or XWayland servers. The test suite probes for this behavior and skips affected tests automatically.

Native Wayland Clipboard

Native Wayland clipboard monitoring (via wl-paste --watch) requires the wlr-data-control protocol, which is only available on wlroots-based compositors (Sway, Hyprland). GNOME (Mutter) and KDE (KWin) do not support this protocol.

However, native Wayland support is not needed on GNOME and KDE: these compositors automatically bridge CLIPBOARD and PRIMARY between XWayland and native Wayland applications in both directions. autocutsel works transparently through this bridge — clipboard content from native Wayland apps (including browser "copy" buttons) is visible to autocutsel via XWayland, and vice versa.

For wlroots-based compositors, wl-paste --watch can be used as a standalone clipboard monitor alongside autocutsel.

Acknowledgments

autocutsel was originally created by Michael Witrant (sigmike). Original project: https://www.nongnu.org/autocutsel/

License

GNU General Public License v2.0 or later — see COPYING.