Copying to the Clipboard with OSC52 in Bash.md

Copying to the Clipboard with OSC52 in Bash

Copying text from a remote shell to your local clipboard can be tricky. Luckily, many terminals support OSC52, an escape sequence that lets you send data straight to the clipboard. Here’s a handy Bash function you can drop into your ~/.bashrc:

osc52() {
  local data
  data=$(openssl base64 | tr -d '\n')
  printf "\e]52;c;%s\a" "$data"
}

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How It Works

• Base64 encoding: openssl base64 converts the input to the required format.
• Escape sequence: \e]52;c;<data>\a tells the terminal to put the decoded text into the clipboard.
• Input via stdin: Just pipe anything you want to copy.

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Usage Examples

echo "Hello" | osc52        # copy a string
cat file.txt | osc52        # copy a file
ls -la | osc52              # copy command output

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Notes

• Works in terminals like iTerm2, xterm, and gnome-terminal.
• In tmux, you may need to enable set -g set-clipboard on.
• Some systems restrict OSC52 for security reasons.