Clipboard Engine

The clipboard engine is the core of CyberPaste. It monitors your clipboard, captures rich content, and stores everything in a local SQLite database for instant recall.

Content Types

Text

Plain text clips are stored with full formatting preservation. The engine detects:

Single-line and multi-line text
Whitespace and indentation
Unicode characters and emoji

Code

Code clips are automatically detected and rendered with syntax highlighting:

Language auto-detection based on content patterns
Syntax highlighting via syntect engine
Language badge displayed on clip card
Support for 100+ programming languages

HTML

HTML-formatted clipboard content is preserved:

Rich text formatting (bold, italic, lists, tables)
Hyperlinks preserved
Source HTML accessible for editing

RTF

Rich Text Format content from word processors and editors:

Formatting preserved (fonts, colors, alignment)
Converted to plain text for search indexing
Original RTF data retained

Images

Clipboard images are captured and stored:

High-resolution preservation
PNG and JPEG formats supported
OCR text extraction available
Full-screen image viewer with zoom

URLs

Web links are automatically detected and categorized:

URL detection via pattern matching
Domain extraction for display
Quick-open in browser action
Favicon display on clip card

Files

File paths from copy operations in Explorer:

Full path preservation
File name and extension display
Quick-open containing folder
File type icon display

Clipboard Monitoring

Capture Methods

Method	Description
Copy (Ctrl+C)	Standard clipboard copy detection
Cut (Ctrl+X)	Cut operation detection via global keyboard hook
Shift+Delete	Alternative cut detection
Manual paste	Paste from CyberPaste itself

Duplicate Detection

When the same content is copied consecutively:

A duplicate toast notification appears
The existing clip's timestamp is refreshed
No duplicate entry is created
Configurable: show/hide duplicate notifications

Ghost Clip Filtering

Ghost clips are empty or minimal clipboard events:

Option to ignore clips with no meaningful content
Filters out single-character or whitespace-only clips
Configurable via ignore_ghost_clips setting

Smart Monitoring

Process-aware: Identifies which application the clip came from
Timestamp precision: Millisecond-accurate capture time
Content hashing: SHA-256 hash for duplicate detection
Size tracking: Tracks content size for storage management

Clip Data Model

Each clip stores:

Field	Description
`id`	Unique UUID identifier
`content`	Text content (for search/indexing)
`content_type`	Type classification (text/code/html/rtf/image/url/file)
`preview`	Short preview text for display
`source_app`	Source application name
`source_path`	Source executable path
`created_at`	Capture timestamp
`size_bytes`	Content size in bytes
`is_pinned`	Pin status
`is_favorite`	Favorite status
`folder_id`	Assigned folder (if any)
`ocr_text`	OCR-extracted text (for images)
`syntax_language`	Detected programming language (for code)

Search Indexing

All clips are indexed for instant full-text search:

SQLite FTS5 (Full-Text Search) for fast queries
Indexes: content, preview, OCR text, source app
Real-time results as you type
Live counters per content type

Retention and Limits

Storage Limits

Setting	Default	Description
`max_items`	300	Maximum number of clips to retain
`auto_delete_days`	30	Auto-delete clips older than this

Auto-Delete

When limits are reached:

Oldest non-pinned clips are deleted first
Pinned clips are never auto-deleted
Configurable retention period (days or unlimited)

Database

SQLite Configuration

Location: %APPDATA%\CyberPaste\cyber_paste.db
Mode: WAL (Write-Ahead Logging) for performance
Indexes: Optimized for search and filtering
Backup: Manual export/import supported

Performance

Sub-millisecond search on 10,000+ clips
Lazy loading for large content
Virtual scrolling for smooth UI