Android copy/paste from clipboard manager

Question

Is it possible to send past command so that it pastes text into currently focused edit text. Scenario:

1. Background service listening for notification (done)

Answer 1

a short summary of above after honeycomb >= API 13:

public String readFromClipboard() {
    ClipboardManager clipboard = (ClipboardManager) getSystemService(Context.CLIPBOARD_SERVICE);
    if (clipboard.hasPrimaryClip()) {
        android.content.ClipDescription description = clipboard.getPrimaryClipDescription();
        android.content.ClipData data = clipboard.getPrimaryClip();
        if (data != null && description != null && description.hasMimeType(ClipDescription.MIMETYPE_TEXT_PLAIN)) 
            return String.valueOf(data.getItemAt(0).getText());
    }
    return null;
}

Answer 2

For most Android devices, above Honeycomb Android version 3.0 the below code will work

For copying text to Clipboard

ClipboardManager clipboard = (ClipboardManager) getSystemService(Context.CLIPBOARD_SERVICE); 
        ClipData clip = android.content.ClipData
                    .newPlainText("copyingToClipboard", "your text here to be copied to clipboard");
    clipboard.setPrimaryClip(clip);

For Copying from Clipboard

ClipboardManager clipboard = (ClipboardManager) getSystemService(Context.CLIPBOARD_SERVICE);
        if (clipboard.hasPrimaryClip() && (clipboard.getPrimaryClipDescription().hasMimeType(MIMETYPE_TEXT_PLAIN) || clipboard.getPrimaryClipDescription().hasMimeType(MIMETYPE_TEXT_HTML))) {
            ClipData.Item item = clipboard.getPrimaryClip().getItemAt(0);
            String clipboardtext = item.getText().toString();
            Toast.makeText(Context,clipboardtext,Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
        }

The code will avoid null value exception in case the clipboard doesn't contain any data.

Answer 3

If you just want to "copy and paste" some code into your app, you can use the following.

#Copy

String textToCopy = etCodeWindow.getText().toString();

ClipboardManager clipboard = (ClipboardManager) context.getSystemService(Context.CLIPBOARD_SERVICE);
ClipData clip = ClipData.newPlainText(null, textToCopy);
if (clipboard == null) return;
clipboard.setPrimaryClip(clip);

#Paste

Get the text to paste

ClipboardManager clipboard = (ClipboardManager) context.getSystemService(Context.CLIPBOARD_SERVICE);
if (clipboard == null) return;
ClipData clip = clipboard.getPrimaryClip();
if (clip == null) return;
ClipData.Item item = clip.getItemAt(0);
if (item == null) return;
CharSequence textToPaste = item.getText();
if (textToPaste == null) return;

or

ClipboardManager clipboard = (ClipboardManager) getSystemService(Context.CLIPBOARD_SERVICE);
try {
    CharSequence textToPaste = clipboard.getPrimaryClip().getItemAt(0).getText();
} catch (Exception e) {
    return;
}

or the same in Kotlin:

val clipboard = (getSystemService(Context.CLIPBOARD_SERVICE)) as? ClipboardManager
val textToPaste = clipboard?.primaryClip?.getItemAt(0)?.text ?: return false

Inserting it at the cursor position

If there is a selection then the selection will be replaced with the paste text.

int start = Math.max(myEditText.getSelectionStart(), 0);
int end = Math.max(myEditText.getSelectionEnd(), 0);
myEditText.getText().replace(Math.min(start, end), Math.max(start, end),
            textToPaste, 0, textToPaste.length());

#Notes

• This answer assumes that you are no longer supporting pre-API 11. If you are then see the edit history.
• Import android.content.ClipboardManager and android.content.ClipData.
• I used to just get the paste text in a one liner until I discovered that ClipData was giving a NPE crash sometimes. Now I would either use a try/catch block or check more carefully for nulls.

Answer 4

you can copy and paste text using following code :

• for copy :

  ClipboardManager clipboard = (ClipboardManager)getSystemService(Context.CLIPBOARD_SERVICE);
  ClipData clip = ClipData.newPlainText("your_text_to_be_copied");
  clipboard.setPrimaryClip(clip);
  

• And paste it :

  ClipboardManager clipboard = (ClipboardManager) getSystemService(Context.CLIPBOARD_SERVICE);
  String pasteData = "";
  
   // If it does contain data, decide if you can handle the data.
  if (!(clipboard.hasPrimaryClip())) {
  
  } else if (!(clipboard.getPrimaryClipDescription().hasMimeType(MIMETYPE_TEXT_PLAIN))) {
  
      // since the clipboard has data but it is not plain text
  
  } else {
  
      //since the clipboard contains plain text.
      ClipData.Item item = clipboard.getPrimaryClip().getItemAt(0);
  
      // Gets the clipboard as text.
      pasteData = item.getText().toString(); 
  }
  

for more details check here

Answer 5

ClipboardManager clipboard = (ClipboardManager) getSystemService(CLIPBOARD_SERVICE); 
String copyedText = clipboard.getText();

Answer 6

I do it this way. Clipboard manager for all api levels.

import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;

import android.annotation.SuppressLint;
import android.content.ClipData;
import android.content.ClipboardManager;
import android.content.ContentResolver;
import android.content.Context;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.content.res.AssetFileDescriptor;
import android.net.Uri;
import android.util.Log;


public class MyClipboardManager {

    @SuppressLint("NewApi")
    @SuppressWarnings("deprecation")
    public boolean copyToClipboard(Context context, String text) {
        try {
            int sdk = android.os.Build.VERSION.SDK_INT;
            if (sdk < android.os.Build.VERSION_CODES.HONEYCOMB) {
                android.text.ClipboardManager clipboard = (android.text.ClipboardManager) context
                        .getSystemService(context.CLIPBOARD_SERVICE);
                clipboard.setText(text);
            } else {
                android.content.ClipboardManager clipboard = (android.content.ClipboardManager) context
                        .getSystemService(context.CLIPBOARD_SERVICE);
                android.content.ClipData clip = android.content.ClipData
                        .newPlainText(
                                context.getResources().getString(
                                        R.string.message), text);
                clipboard.setPrimaryClip(clip);
            }
            return true;
        } catch (Exception e) {
            return false;
        }
    }

    @SuppressLint("NewApi")
    public String readFromClipboard(Context context) {
        int sdk = android.os.Build.VERSION.SDK_INT;
        if (sdk < android.os.Build.VERSION_CODES.HONEYCOMB) {
            android.text.ClipboardManager clipboard = (android.text.ClipboardManager) context
                    .getSystemService(context.CLIPBOARD_SERVICE);
            return clipboard.getText().toString();
        } else {
            ClipboardManager clipboard = (ClipboardManager) context
                    .getSystemService(Context.CLIPBOARD_SERVICE);

            // Gets a content resolver instance
            ContentResolver cr = context.getContentResolver();

            // Gets the clipboard data from the clipboard
            ClipData clip = clipboard.getPrimaryClip();
            if (clip != null) {

                String text = null;
                String title = null;

                // Gets the first item from the clipboard data
                ClipData.Item item = clip.getItemAt(0);

                // Tries to get the item's contents as a URI pointing to a note
                Uri uri = item.getUri();

                // If the contents of the clipboard wasn't a reference to a
                // note, then
                // this converts whatever it is to text.
                if (text == null) {
                    text = coerceToText(context, item).toString();
                }

                return text;
            }
        }
        return "";
    }

    @SuppressLint("NewApi")
    public CharSequence coerceToText(Context context, ClipData.Item item) {
        // If this Item has an explicit textual value, simply return that.
        CharSequence text = item.getText();
        if (text != null) {
            return text;
        }

        // If this Item has a URI value, try using that.
        Uri uri = item.getUri();
        if (uri != null) {

            // First see if the URI can be opened as a plain text stream
            // (of any sub-type). If so, this is the best textual
            // representation for it.
            FileInputStream stream = null;
            try {
                // Ask for a stream of the desired type.
                AssetFileDescriptor descr = context.getContentResolver()
                        .openTypedAssetFileDescriptor(uri, "text/*", null);
                stream = descr.createInputStream();
                InputStreamReader reader = new InputStreamReader(stream,
                        "UTF-8");

                // Got it... copy the stream into a local string and return it.
                StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder(128);
                char[] buffer = new char[8192];
                int len;
                while ((len = reader.read(buffer)) > 0) {
                    builder.append(buffer, 0, len);
                }
                return builder.toString();

            } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
                // Unable to open content URI as text... not really an
                // error, just something to ignore.

            } catch (IOException e) {
                // Something bad has happened.
                Log.w("ClippedData", "Failure loading text", e);
                return e.toString();

            } finally {
                if (stream != null) {
                    try {
                        stream.close();
                    } catch (IOException e) {
                    }
                }
            }

            // If we couldn't open the URI as a stream, then the URI itself
            // probably serves fairly well as a textual representation.
            return uri.toString();
        }

        // Finally, if all we have is an Intent, then we can just turn that
        // into text. Not the most user-friendly thing, but it's something.
        Intent intent = item.getIntent();
        if (intent != null) {
            return intent.toUri(Intent.URI_INTENT_SCHEME);
        }

        // Shouldn't get here, but just in case...
        return "";
    }

}