Cannot copy multiple files to clipboard 0 on macOS

[happyTonakai]

Describe the bug
I cannot copy multiple files with clipboard 0 (barely with command cb copy and cb paste). It only works for other clipboard such as cb copy1 and cb copy_420.

To Reproduce

cb copy theme.toml yazi.toml
 ✔  Copied 2 files

cb show
┏━━ Here are the items in clipboard  0 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ yazi.toml                                                                                                                                              ┃
┗━▌Files, Directories▐━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛

cb copy_420 theme.toml yazi.toml
 ✔  Copied 2 files

cb show_420
┏━━ Here are the items in clipboard  _420 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ yazi.toml                                                                                                                                              ┃
┃ theme.toml                                                                                                                                             ┃
┗━▌Files, Directories▐━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛ 

Expected behavior
All clipboards work as expected. Because the system uses clipboard 0. I cannot paste the files to other applications.

Screenshots
Not applicable.

Version
I'm using CB 0.10.0 from the Homebrew repos with macOS.
I also tried CB 0.10.0 from Homebrew with Ubuntu and it works fine. Only has issue with macOS.

[Slackadays]

@happyTonakai Ok, do you mind running cb info and copying and pasting the output here? I can't reproduce this on my Mac Mini

[happyTonakai]

Sure, it's here

┏━━ Info for clipboard  0 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ Created Sun Jun  8 00:08:16 2025                                                                                                                      ┃
┃ Content last changed Wed Jun 11 09:33:43 2025                                                                                                         ┃
┃ Stored in /var/folders/br/4h61jm_n6fv_vf0f3br383v80000gn/T/Clipboard/0                                                                                ┃
┃ Owned by hanzr                                                                                                                                        ┃
┃ Persistent? No                                                                                                                                        ┃
┃ Total entries: 20                                                                                                                                     ┃
┃ Total clipboard size: 12.64MB                                                                                                                         ┃
┃ Total space remaining: 383.80GB                                                                                                                       ┃
┃ Approx. entries remaining: 621,679                                                                                                                    ┃
┃ Content size: 21B                                                                                                                                     ┃
┃ Content type: text/plain                                                                                                                              ┃
┃ Content cut? No                                                                                                                                       ┃
┃ Locked by another process? No                                                                                                                         ┃
┃ There is no note for this clipboard.                                                                                                                  ┃
┃ There are no ignore regexes for this clipboard.                                                                                                       ┃
┃ There are no ignore secrets for this clipboard.                                                                                                       ┃
┃ There is no script for this clipboard.                                                                                                                ┃
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛

[happyTonakai]

Here's the info output after I copied 1 and 2 files using clipboard 0 and clipboard_42

cb copy lecture-notes-ch1.pdf
 ✔  Copied one item

cb info
┏━━ Info for clipboard  0 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ Created Sun Jun  8 00:08:16 2025                                                                                                                      ┃
┃ Content last changed Wed Jun 11 09:37:04 2025                                                                                                         ┃
┃ Stored in /var/folders/br/4h61jm_n6fv_vf0f3br383v80000gn/T/Clipboard/0                                                                                ┃
┃ Owned by hanzr                                                                                                                                        ┃
┃ Persistent? No                                                                                                                                        ┃
┃ Total entries: 21                                                                                                                                     ┃
┃ Total clipboard size: 12.91MB                                                                                                                         ┃
┃ Total space remaining: 383.79GB                                                                                                                       ┃
┃ Approx. entries remaining: 639,389                                                                                                                    ┃
┃ Content size: 270.56kB                                                                                                                                ┃
┃ Files: 1                                                                                                                                              ┃
┃ Directories: 0                                                                                                                                        ┃
┃ Content cut? No                                                                                                                                       ┃
┃ Locked by another process? No                                                                                                                         ┃
┃ There is no note for this clipboard.                                                                                                                  ┃
┃ There are no ignore regexes for this clipboard.                                                                                                       ┃
┃ There are no ignore secrets for this clipboard.                                                                                                       ┃
┃ There is no script for this clipboard.                                                                                                                ┃
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛

cb copy lecture-notes-ch1.pdf lecture-notes-ch2.pdf
 ✔  Copied 2 files

cb info
┏━━ Info for clipboard  0 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ Created Sun Jun  8 00:08:16 2025                                                                                                                      ┃
┃ Content last changed Wed Jun 11 09:37:23 2025                                                                                                         ┃
┃ Stored in /var/folders/br/4h61jm_n6fv_vf0f3br383v80000gn/T/Clipboard/0                                                                                ┃
┃ Owned by hanzr                                                                                                                                        ┃
┃ Persistent? No                                                                                                                                        ┃
┃ Total entries: 23                                                                                                                                     ┃
┃ Total clipboard size: 14.98MB                                                                                                                         ┃
┃ Total space remaining: 383.79GB                                                                                                                       ┃
┃ Approx. entries remaining: 603,519                                                                                                                    ┃
┃ Content size: 270.56kB                                                                                                                                ┃
┃ Files: 1                                                                                                                                              ┃
┃ Directories: 0                                                                                                                                        ┃
┃ Content cut? No                                                                                                                                       ┃
┃ Locked by another process? No                                                                                                                         ┃
┃ There is no note for this clipboard.                                                                                                                  ┃
┃ There are no ignore regexes for this clipboard.                                                                                                       ┃
┃ There are no ignore secrets for this clipboard.                                                                                                       ┃
┃ There is no script for this clipboard.                                                                                                                ┃
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛

cb copy_42 lecture-notes-ch1.pdf lecture-notes-ch2.pdf
 ✔  Copied 2 files

cb info_42
┏━━ Info for clipboard  _42 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ Created Sun Jun  8 09:31:31 2025                                                                                                                      ┃
┃ Content last changed Wed Jun 11 09:37:47 2025                                                                                                         ┃
┃ Stored in /Users/hanzr/.local/state/clipboard/_42                                                                                                     ┃
┃ Owned by hanzr                                                                                                                                        ┃
┃ Persistent? Yes                                                                                                                                       ┃
┃ Total entries: 5                                                                                                                                      ┃
┃ Total clipboard size: 3,986.81kB                                                                                                                      ┃
┃ Total space remaining: 383.78GB                                                                                                                       ┃
┃ Approx. entries remaining: 504,697                                                                                                                    ┃
┃ Content size: 1,848.69kB                                                                                                                              ┃
┃ Files: 2                                                                                                                                              ┃
┃ Directories: 0                                                                                                                                        ┃
┃ Content cut? No                                                                                                                                       ┃
┃ Locked by another process? No                                                                                                                         ┃
┃ There is no note for this clipboard.                                                                                                                  ┃
┃ There are no ignore regexes for this clipboard.                                                                                                       ┃
┃ There are no ignore secrets for this clipboard.                                                                                                       ┃
┃ There is no script for this clipboard.                                                                                                                ┃
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛

[Slackadays]

Ok, try this: set CLIPBOARD_NOGUI=1 to check if this is a Clipboard or macOS issue. I can't find any issue that stands out from what you provided.

[happyTonakai]

Ok, try this: set CLIPBOARD_NOGUI=1 to check if this is a Clipboard or macOS issue. I can't find any issue that stands out from what you provided.

After setting it, there are now multiple files copied in clipboard 0.

[timsofteng]

Same here. Doesn't work for me on macos as well.
after CLIPBOARD_NOGUI=1 cb works well in cli but doesn't in GUI which is obvious I guess.
Do you have ideas how to fix it?

[timhansinger]

@Slackadays I have no idea if this might be of any help since you are writing this in C++, but I've had a similar issue with code I wrote in Swift to do the same thing. You can see in my code a workaround I came up with that worked reliably:

https://github.com/timhansinger/pbcp/blob/main/Sources/main.swift

After adding items to macOS pasteboard I read the objects in the pasteboard once. By just doing so I now have all items in the pasteboard. If I do not read them I only have one item in the pasteboard even if I added multiple files to it.

extension [URL] {
    fileprivate func addToPasteboard() {
        let pasteboard = NSPasteboard.general

        pasteboard.writeObjects(self as [NSPasteboardWriting])
        pasteboard.macOSBugfixToPreserveAllItems()
    }
}

extension NSPasteboard {
    // INFO: This is a bugfix - otherwise only one item will be in the pasteboard
    fileprivate func macOSBugfixToPreserveAllItems() {
        self.readObjects(forClasses: [NSURL.self], options: nil)
    }
}