copy to clipboard current path from console with no mouse

Question

I'm wondering if it possible to copy to clipboard output of pwd command.

I often need to copy some path and I have to select it with mouse, do several clicks and that is annoying for me.

What I want is piping output of pwd command to something that will copy it to clipboard so I do not have to touch my mouse

Edit: it will be great if it is possible with some built-in

score 38 · Accepted Answer · edited Dec 17 '19 at 16:24

38

You can use a program called xclip. For installing it type:

sudo apt-get install xclip

and then do

pwd | xclip -- which copies output of pwd to xclip

Now to get the output type:

xclip -o

or to copy to the "standard" clipboard (to avoid having to use xclip -o)

pwd | xclip -selection clipboard

for more options use

man xclip

edited Dec 17 '19 at 16:24

Eric Leschinski

answered Mar 17 '15 at 08:42

bolzano

how can I cd after that? xclip -o | cd do not work – micgeronimo Mar 17 '15 at 10:28
you can do it by cd xclip-o but use the to close the xclip -o..whatever code is inside in the terminal will post the output of that code.it will get the output of xclip -o and then cd will change directory to it – bolzano Mar 17 '15 at 10:39
@micgeronimo you could use one of either xclip -o | xargs cd or cd $(xclip -o) – evilsoup Mar 17 '15 at 14:47
1

I suggest using cd "\xclip -o`"` if there are spaces in cwd... – alessandro Apr 18 '17 at 08:30
This doesn't work :/ if I look at a file cat banana.txt | xclip it copies fine. pwd | xclip doesn't copy anything. – Phill Jun 12 '20 at 12:16

Josue Abarca · Answer 2 · 2015-03-17T19:31:41.867

10

You can use xclip or xsel, to install xsel just do:

sudo apt-get install xsel

and then do

pwd | xsel -b

to copy the output of pwd to the clipboard.

To get the content of the clipboard you can use:

xsel -b

Here you can read a review of xclip and xsel:

edited Mar 17 '15 at 19:31

answered Mar 17 '15 at 14:21

Josue Abarca

3

xsel works perfectly. xclip didn't work for me. – Phill Jun 12 '20 at 12:17

2 Answers2