osascript-clipboard

name	osascript-clipboard
description	Read and write the macOS clipboard with full type support. Use when reading clipboard text, HTML, RTF, images, or file paths (Finder copy); writing rich content; detecting clipboard changes via changeCount; or intercepting content between copy and paste.

osascript-clipboard

NSPasteboard via JXA — handles all clipboard types simultaneously. theClipboard() in JXA standard additions is plain text only. NSPasteboard is the full API.

Clipboard Types

UTI	Content
public.utf8-plain-text	Plain text
public.html	HTML with styling (web copy)
public.rtf	Rich Text Format
public.tiff / public.png	Image data
NSFilenamesPboardType	File paths (Finder copy)
public.url	URL string

Scripts

Read all clipboard types — text, HTML, file paths, image presence:

uv run scripts/clipboard-read.py

Write plain text or text + HTML simultaneously to clipboard:

uv run scripts/clipboard-write.py "plain text content"
uv run scripts/clipboard-write.py "plain text" --html "<b>plain text</b>"

Poll changeCount and print new clipboard content whenever it changes:

uv run scripts/clipboard-watch.py
uv run scripts/clipboard-watch.py --interval 0.5

Reference

• reference/20-nspasteboard.md — Full NSPasteboard API, all UTI types, change detection, multi-type write

Key Pattern: Always clear before writing

pb.clearContents; // always clear first
pb.setStringForType($("my text"), $("public.utf8-plain-text"));

Change detection without reading content:

var before = pb.changeCount();
// ... later ...
if (pb.changeCount() !== before) {
  /* clipboard changed */
}