Command line copy an image file to the clipboard in Mac OS X. See first comment for install instructions.

impbcopy.m

#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>
#import <Cocoa/Cocoa.h>
#import <unistd.h>
BOOL copy_to_clipboard(NSString *path)
{
  // http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2681630/how-to-read-png-image-to-nsimage
  NSImage * image;
  if([path isEqualToString:@"-"])
  {
    // http://caiustheory.com/read-standard-input-using-objective-c 
    NSFileHandle *input = [NSFileHandle fileHandleWithStandardInput];
    image = [[NSImage alloc] initWithData:[input readDataToEndOfFile]];
  }else
  { 
    image =  [[NSImage alloc] initWithContentsOfFile:path];
  }
  // http://stackoverflow.com/a/18124824/148668
  BOOL copied = false;
  if (image != nil)
  {
    NSPasteboard *pasteboard = [NSPasteboard generalPasteboard];
    [pasteboard clearContents];
    NSArray *copiedObjects = [NSArray arrayWithObject:image];
    copied = [pasteboard writeObjects:copiedObjects];
    [pasteboard release];
  }
  [image release];
  return copied;
}

int main(int argc, char * const argv[])
{
  NSAutoreleasePool *pool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init];
  if(argc<2)
  {
    printf("Usage:\n\n"
      "Copy file to clipboard:\n    ./impbcopy path/to/file\n\n"
      "Copy stdin to clipboard:\n    cat /path/to/file | ./impbcopy -");
    return EXIT_FAILURE;
  }
  NSString *path= [NSString stringWithUTF8String:argv[1]];
  BOOL success = copy_to_clipboard(path);
  [pool release];
  return (success?EXIT_SUCCESS:EXIT_FAILURE);
}

Wonderful, I've been trying to crack this nut for a long time. Works perfectly - thank you!

works like a charm, thank you for this 👍

I've been using this as part of a flow for using keyboard shortcuts to add drop shadows (and do other changes) to images that are in the clipboard and it has been super helpful for that. Thanks so much for sharing. I wish I knew more about how brew packages work and we could upload it to brew so you don't have to compile it on new workstations.

Thank you for this, is there a way to copy GIF as well? When I copy a GIF I just get an png file.