pbadd

Add files to the clipboard from CLI as if they would be copied with Finder.

Motivation

The built-in pbcopy command only works with text. If you want to copy an image, PDF, or any other file type to the clipboard from the terminal, you're out of luck.

pbadd fills this gap by enabling you to copy any file to the clipboard, just like when you copy files in Finder. You can then paste these files into any application that accepts them - paste images into documents, PDFs into emails, or any file into chat applications.

Installation

Prerequisites

• macOS 11.0 or later (Big Sur or newer)
• Xcode Command Line Tools
• Make

Using homebrew

brew install dsdolzhenko/tools/pbadd

From sources

make && sudo make install

This will build the pbadd executable and install it to /usr/local/bin.

To install to a different location:

make && make install PREFIX=/your/custom/path

Usage

# Add files to the clipboard
pbadd /path/to/file another/file

# Display help
pbadd -h
pbadd --help

License

The project is licensed under the MIT license.