Transferring binary content by way of clipboard via Powershell

PSFileTransferByClipboard.ps1

## Powershell method of transfering small (< 1 MB) binary files via Clipboard
##
## NB: Unwise to attempt to encode binary files exceeding 1 MB due to excessive memory consumption

## Powershell 5.0> 
# On the transmission end:
$Content = Get-Content -Encoding Byte -Path binaryfile.xxx
[System.Convert]::ToBase64String($Content) | Set-Clipboard

# On the receiving end
$Base64 = Get-Clipboard -Format Text -TextFormatType Text
Set-Content -Value $([System.Convert]::FromBase64String($Base64)) -Encoding Byte -Path binaryfile.zip


## Prior to Powershell 5.0
# On the transmission end:
$Content = Get-Content -Encoding Byte -Path binaryfile.xxx
[System.Convert]::ToBase64String($Content) | clip

# On the receiving end:
# Paste the Base64 encoded contents in a text file manually:
$Base64 = Get-Content –Path binaryfile.xxx.base64_encoded.txt
Set-Content -Value $([System.Convert]::FromBase64String($Base64)) -Encoding Byte -Path binaryfile.zip

Works like a charm to copy files in and out of Citrix

To make things much faster with big files, use [System.IO.File]::ReadAllBytes rather than Get-Content. Here is the difference of performance for a 2.5 MB file:

PS C:\> Measure-Command { [byte[]]$Bytes = Get-Content -Path "C:\Temp\BigFile.zip" -Encoding byte }
Days              : 0
Hours             : 0
Minutes           : 0
Seconds           : 47
Milliseconds      : 28
Ticks             : 470281306
TotalDays         : 0.00054430706712963
TotalHours        : 0.0130633696111111
TotalMinutes      : 0.783802176666667
TotalSeconds      : 47.0281306
TotalMilliseconds : 47028.1306

PS C:\> Measure-Command { [byte[]]$Bytes = [System.IO.File]::ReadAllBytes("C:\Temp\BigFile.zip") }
Days              : 0
Hours             : 0
Minutes           : 0
Seconds           : 0
Milliseconds      : 24
Ticks             : 247561
TotalDays         : 2.86528935185185E-07
TotalHours        : 6.87669444444444E-06
TotalMinutes      : 0.000412601666666667
TotalSeconds      : 0.0247561
TotalMilliseconds : 24.7561

As you can see, it makes a HUGE difference !

I created a powershell function of the above and i incorporated the suggestion from @fred-gagnon. Very useful, big thanks to both of you.

https://gist.github.com/JohanSelmosson/64c6542ee7bf0efa5ea286d4a9710ef9