I am perfectly happy with all my clipboard management being done with Alfred, despite all the wiz-bang features of Keyboard Maestro. How do I keep Keyboard Maestro from permanently interfering with my clipboard? I love the Keyboard Maestro macro system.
Thanks in advance.
You can set the clipboard history length to zero as described in the Preferences user manual section.
It’s not really recommended, since it means macros that change the clipboard, wait, and then restore it will fail, and macros that use multiple copied items wont work, and other similar problems. For example, I have lots of macros where I copy two pieces of information and then run the macro to use both of them together somehow.
KM does not actually "interfere" with the System clipboard. It maintains its own Clipboard History.
So I don't think it is something you really need to worry about.
Have you noticed any unwanted behavior relative to the System Clipboard?
I have 3 apps that I know of that are actively using the system clipboard. 1Password, Alfred and Keyboard Maestro. Lately, sometimes when I copy a password from 1Password it disappears from the system clipboard. The other day when it was happening I shutdown Keyboard Maestro and I was able to get my password into and from the clipboard. I do have detect and conceal passwords unchecked. It may have been a coincidence
As Indiana Jones once said “They’re digging in the wrong place”! Yes, it appears I’ve been digging in the wrong place. It’s not Keyboard Maestro but Alfred. In the Alfred preferences there is a “Ignore clipboard data marked as Concealed”. This was checked, I unchecked and the Alfred clipboard I use the most seems to be working fine. I don’t know if this is new or I’ve had it unchecked in the past and an update flipped it back on.
Thank you everybody for your help.
You can set the clipboard history length to zero as described in the Preferences user manual section.
Sorry, I was unable to find this option. Can you please tell me specifically where it is?
And is excluding a certain app from clipboard history, like so, equivalent to setting the clipboard history length to zero for that app only?:
Hi!
This preference can be set through command line: https://wiki.keyboardmaestro.com/manual/Preferences#Clipboard
Not really, no.
Excluding the app simply means that anything copied in the application will be ignored by Keyboard Maestro and not added to the clipboard history unless it is actively used (eg you use the SystemClipboard token).
The clipboard history remains available, so for example you could paste from it.
Excluding the app simply means that anything copied in the application will be ignored by Keyboard Maestro and not added to the clipboard history unless it is actively used (eg you use the SystemClipboard token).
The clipboard history remains available, so for example you could paste from it.
I'm afraid I'm not following. If excluding the app means items copied from it are not added to the history, then how could you paste such items from the clipboard history?
I should add the reason for my question. When I copy and paste in Excel (even if it's just from one cell to another), I often get a spinning beachball, even though I'm using a relatively fast Mac (2019 i9 iMac). I was wondering if that's because I'm running three clipboard managers simultaneously--CopyLess, plus those in KBM and LaunchBar. I thus wanted to disable the latter two to see if that eliminates the issue. I've already disabled LB, so that just leaves KBM.
Given this, is excluding Excel sufficient, or do I need to set the history length to zero?
You could not paste “such” items. You could paste items that are already there from other apps.
It's likely due the the fact that Excel includes flavors they do not expect to be read, and reading them can cause problems (like loading entire subsystems to deal with the flavors that they haven't really got data for). Keyboard Maestro avoids various flavors for this reason, but Microsoft are always adding new ways to mess things up. And the other clipboard manages may not be avoiding the same flavors.
Excluding Excel is sufficient. Or finding the specific problematic flavors and excluding them which can also be done.
Excluding Excel is sufficient. Or finding the specific problematic flavors and excluding them which can also be done.
OK, thanks.
You could not paste “such” items. You could paste items that are already there from other apps.
Yes, that was my original understanding--you couldn't paste items from Excel if Excel were excluded, since nothing from Excel would hit the clipboard in the first place.
But then, given this, how would excluding Excel be different for Excel from setting the clipboard history to zero? Yes, it would of course be different for other apps--those would not be affected if you just exclude Excel. But I'm asking about Excel only.
I.e., suppose the only app you used were Excel. With regard to clipboard behavior, what would be the difference between excluding Excel and setting the clipboard history length to zero?
[When I first asked if there would be a difference, you said those two would not be the same:]
Because you still have access to the clipboard history from other applications.
For example, copy three things in Pages, switch to Excel, then execute:
If you never leave Excel and you never had anything in the clipboard history beforehand, then they would be the same.
If Excel is the only app you use, then you could not use Keyboard Maestro and the entire question would be moot.
Because they behave differently with respect to the clipboard and other applications. I've never known anyone who only uses Excel so unless you are saying you only ever use Excel and never use the Finder or Keyboard Maestro or Safari or Chrome or any other application, then they have different behaviours.
I trust that is clear?
I trust that is clear?
Sorry, I'm afraid it still isn't. For instance, when you wrote: "Because you still have access to the clipboard history from other applications.", I didn't know if you were referring to the exclusion function or the zero clipboard history function.
And obviously I'm using more than just Excel. I tried a purely hypothetical question to help me understand what's going on.
Let me try this: Suppose you had the abilty to limit the clipboard history to zero for Excel only. How would that be different from excluding Excel? Would this be the case:
Copying from Excel: No different. In both cases, items copied from Excel are not added to the clipboard history. [That's why you said excluding Excel would work for my purposes, since my goal was to keep material copied from Excel from being pasted into the clipboard history.]
Pasting into Excel:
a) Excel excluded: You can't paste from the KBM clipboard into Excel.
b) Excel clipboard history zero: You can still paste from the KBM clipboard (which could have items copied from other apps) into Excel.
2a - no, you can always paste in to Excel from anything you have in Keyboard Maestro, including any clipboard history that comes from outside of Excel.
2b - correct, you can always paste in to Excel from anything you have in Keyboard Maestro, including any clipboard history that comes from outside of Excel.
Anyway, this is going around in circles.
If Excel is excluded from the clipboard history, then if you copy in Excel it will not be read by Keyboard Maestro at all unless you explicitly reference it. Everything else works unchanged.
If the clipboard history length is 0, then nothing you copy will be read by Keyboard Maestro at all unless you explicitly reference it, and nothing will be stored in the clipboard history (though there is always a current system clipboard value which is usually the first item in the clipboard history).
