How to copy text to clipboard/pasteboard with Swift

Question

I'm looking for a clean example of how to copy text to iOS clipboard that can then be used/pasted in other apps.

The benefit of this function is that the text can be copied quickly, without the standard text highlighting functions of the traditional text copying.

I am assuming that the key classes are in UIPasteboard, but can't find the relevant areas in the code example they supply.

Answer 1

If all you want is plain text, you can just use the string property. It's both readable and writable:

// write to clipboard
UIPasteboard.general.string = "Hello world"

// read from clipboard
let content = UIPasteboard.general.string

(When reading from the clipboard, the UIPasteboard documentation also suggests you might want to first check hasStrings, "to avoid causing the system to needlessly attempt to fetch data before it is needed or when the data might not be present", such as when using Handoff.)

Answer 2

Since copying and pasting is usually done in pairs, this is supplemental answer to @jtbandes good, concise answer. I originally came here looking how to paste.

iOS makes this easy because the general pasteboard can be used like a variable. Just get and set UIPasteboard.general.string.

Here is an example showing both being used with a UITextField:

Copy

UIPasteboard.general.string = myTextField.text

Paste

if let myString = UIPasteboard.general.string {
    myTextField.insertText(myString)
}

Note that the pasteboard string is an Optional, so it has to be unwrapped first.

Answer 3

Copying text from the app to the clipboard:

let pasteboard = UIPasteboard.general
pasteboard.string = employee.phoneNumber

Answer 4

SWIFT 4

UIPasteboard.general.string = "TEXT"