OSC 52 — Clipboard Manipulation

Sequence	OSC 52 ; <selection> ; <base64-payload> ST
Otty support	✓ (opt-in)

Description

Reads or writes the system clipboard from a program — including over SSH, where there's no other way to get text into the host's clipboard.

<selection>	Clipboard
c	The standard clipboard (most common)
p	Primary selection (Linux)
(other)	Implementation-defined

Payload	Meaning
Base64 text	Write to the selected clipboard
?	Query — terminal replies with the current value (encoded)

Security

Clipboard access via OSC 52 lets any program (including a remote one over SSH) read or write your clipboard. Off by default in Otty. Enable with:

clipboard-osc-52 = write           # write | read-write | off

read-write is required for query — only enable it if you understand the implications (a script in a remote shell can exfiltrate your clipboard contents).

Example

# Copy "hello world" to the clipboard
printf '\e]52;c;%s\a' "$(printf hello\ world | base64)"

Try it

• otty features try clipboard-write — copies a sample string (gated by your clipboard-write config).
• otty features try clipboard-read — fires the ? query so you can confirm clipboard-read = ask produces a prompt.

Related

• Copy and Paste — clipboard handling in Otty.
• Notifications — section "Clipboard (OSC 52)" has the security notes too.