| FISH_CLIPBOARD_PASTE(1) | fish-shell | FISH_CLIPBOARD_PASTE(1) |
NAME
fish_clipboard_paste - get text from the system's clipboard
SYNOPSIS
fish_clipboard_paste fish_clipboard_paste | foo
DESCRIPTION
The fish_clipboard_paste function copies text from the system clipboard.
If its stdout is not a terminal (see isatty <>), it will output everything there, as-is, without any additional newlines. If it is, it will put the text in the commandline instead.
If it outputs to the commandline, it will automatically escape the output if the cursor is currently inside single-quotes so it is suitable for single-quotes (meaning it escapes ' and \\).
It is bound to ctrl-v by default.
fish_clipboard_paste works by calling a system-specific backend. If it doesn't appear to work you may need to install yours.
Currently supported are:
- pbpaste
- wl-paste using wayland
- xsel and xclip for X11
- powershell.exe on Windows (this backend has encoding limitations and uses windows line endings that fish_clipboard_paste undoes)
SEE ALSO
- •
- fish_clipboard_copy - copy text to the system's clipboard <> which does the inverse.
Copyright
fish-shell developers
| October 10, 2026 | 4.9 |