# Pasting to clipboard

kitty implements the OSC 52 escape code protocol to get/set the clipboard contents (controlled via the `clipboard_control` setting). There is one difference in kitty’s implementation compared to some other terminal emulators. kitty allows sending arbitrary amounts of text to the clipboard. It does so by modifying the protocol slightly. Successive OSC 52 escape codes to set the clipboard will concatenate, so:

    <ESC>]52;c;<payload1><ESC>\
    <ESC>]52;c;<payload2><ESC>\

will result in the clipboard having the contents `payload1 + payload2`. To send a new string to the clipboard send an OSC 52 sequence with an invalid payload first, for example:

    <ESC>]52;c;!<ESC>\

Here `!` is not valid base64 encoded text, so it clears the clipboard. Further, since it is invalid, it should be ignored by terminal emulators that do not support this extension, thereby making it safe to use, simply always send it before starting a new OSC 52 paste, even if you aren’t chunking up large pastes, that way kitty won’t concatenate your paste, and it will have no ill-effects in other terminal emulators.

In case you’re using software that can’t be easily adapted to this protocol extension, it can be disabled by specifying `no-append` to the `clipboard_control` setting.