macos - Can python send text to the Mac clipboard

Question

I'd like my python program to place some text in the Mac clipboard.

Is this possible?

Answer 1

How to write a Unicode string to the Mac clipboard:

import subprocess

def write_to_clipboard(output):
    process = subprocess.Popen(
        'pbcopy', env={'LANG': 'en_US.UTF-8'}, stdin=subprocess.PIPE)
    process.communicate(output.encode('utf-8'))

How to read a Unicode string from the Mac clipboard:

import subprocess

def read_from_clipboard():
    return subprocess.check_output(
        'pbpaste', env={'LANG': 'en_US.UTF-8'}).decode('utf-8')

Works on both Python 2.7 and Python 3.4.

2021 Update: If you need to be able to read the clipboard on other operating systems and not just Mac and are okay with adding an external library, pyperclip also seems to work well. I tested it on Mac with Unicode text:

python -m pip install pyperclip
python -c 'import pyperclip; pyperclip.copy("私はDavid!??")'  # copy
python -c 'import pyperclip; print(repr(pyperclip.paste()))'  # paste