gcopy (global copy) is a command line tool that copies data to your clipboard on MacOS.

It does what pbcopy does but with some extra features:

• Works with images, so copied images can be pasted in other applications
• Accepts arbitrary STDIN via a pipe
• If a filename is passed as an argument it'll copy the data as though you hit CMD+C via Finder, allowing pasting of files (PDFs, archive files, videos etc.) to other programs
• Has an optional flag to copy the absolute pathname of a file or folder to the clipboard
• Written in Go, deployed as a multi-arch static binary
• Works as a drop-in replacement for pbcopy since it extends its features

go install github.com/TheDen/gcopy@latest

To install via brew

brew tap theden/gcopy
brew install gcopy

gcopy can be used as a drop-in replacement for pbcopy. To do this, add the alias into your .bashrc or similar

alias pbcopy='gcopy'

usage: gcopy [file] [STDIN] [-h|--help] [-v|--version] [-p|--path]

                            gcopy: copy content to the clipboard

Arguments:

  -h  --help     Print help information
  -v  --version  Current version
  -p  --path     Copy (and show) the absolute pathname of a file or folder to
                 the clipboard

Works with text or arbitrary data

cat main.go | gcopy
# or
gcopy < main.go

Images can also be copied via pipes, and then pasted as images to GUI applications

cat image.png | gcopy
# or
gcopy < image.png

gcopy main.go

Similarly for images

gcopy image.png

Or any other type of file

gcopy backups.zip

Copying via this method will allow you to paste non-text data in other applications

gcopy -p .bashrc
/Users/den/.bashrc