Ringboard is a Linux clipboard manager written in Rust, designed around a modular client-server architecture. It separates clipboard monitoring, history storage and user interaction into independent components, giving users considerable freedom in how they access their clipboard.
Rather than tying clipboard management to a particular desktop environment, Ringboard offers several interfaces built around a common storage service. This makes it suitable for conventional graphical desktops as well as terminal-focused setups.
Ringboard places particular emphasis on performance and scalability. Its architecture is designed to handle large collections of clipboard entries without loading the entire history into memory whenever a user wants to retrieve something. It is an interesting option for people who frequently copy text, images and other material throughout the working day.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Persistent clipboard history supporting text, images and arbitrary binary data across system restarts.
- Dedicated terminal interface built with Ratatui, alongside an egui-based graphical application and command-line tools.
- Separate clipboard watchers for Wayland and X11 allow the same storage service to be used across different Linux desktop environments.
- Search clipboard entries using plain queries or regular expressions.
- Designed to support very large histories, with capacity for approximately one million stored entries.
- Efficient storage and retrieval using a custom binary format, memory mapping and Linux io_uring facilities.
- Loads only the history entries required for the current view, reducing unnecessary database reads and memory use.
- Migration tools import existing history from GNOME Clipboard History, GPaste and Clipboard Indicator.
- Client SDK allows additional applications and interfaces to interact with the Ringboard service.
- Separate server and clipboard watcher services can be managed through systemd user units.
Website: github.com/SUPERCILEX/clipboard-history
Support:
Developer: Alex Saveau
License: Apache License 2.0
Ringboard is written in Rust. Learn Rust with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| CLI Clipboard Managers | |
|---|---|
| clipmenu | Simple clipboard manager using dmenu (or rofi) and xsel |
| cliphist | Clipboard history manager for Wayland |
| Clipcat | Uses a client-server architecture |
| Greenclip | Recycle your clipboard selections |
| Ringboard | Clipboard manager built around a client-server architecture |
| Clipvault | Clipboard history manager for Wayland |
| Clipster | Simple clipboard manager which aims to be lightweight |
| nocb | Nearly optimal clipboard manager |
| clipsim | Simple and fast X clipboard manager |
| cclip | Cipboard manager for Wayland |
| Clapboard | Clipboard manager for Wayland written in Rust |
| Qlipmon | Clipboard history saver with native rofi plugin and DBUS interface |
| clipbox | Clipboard manager for Wayland |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
| TUI Clipboard Managers | |
|---|---|
| Clippy | Lightweight terminal-based clipboard history manager |
| Ringboard | Clipboard history manager with graphical and terminal interfaces |
| clipse | TUI-based clipboard manager application written in Go |
| Stash | Wayland clipboard manager written in Rust |
| Glipboard | Terminal-based clipboard manager supporting text and images |
| Clipboard Manager | Designed for tiling window managers |
| Homie | Clipboard manager written in Go |
| ClipTUI | Runs as a background daemon, recording clipboard entries locally |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
 LinuxLinks helps you discover the best free and open source software for Linux. Explore our extensive collection of recommended applications, including alternatives to popular proprietary software.We also publish software reviews, Linux tutorials, hardware reviews, free programming books and articles covering the wider open source community. Browse our Linux resources to discover more. Know a useful free and open source Linux application we haven't covered? Suggest a program for inclusion. Has your software been featured on LinuxLinks? Display one of our Featured on LinuxLinks badges on your website or GitHub README. |
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.