kovidgoyal/kitty · warning

The clipboard is empty

Error message

The clipboard is empty

What it means

After querying the peer for the list of available MIME types (DATA ... DONE handshake), an empty list means the clipboard currently holds nothing. The kitten reports 'The clipboard is empty' rather than proceeding to per-output assignment.

Source

Thrown at kittens/clipboard/read.go:360

	}

	lp.OnEscapeCode = func(etype loop.EscapeCodeType, data []byte) (err error) {
		metadata, payload, err := parse_escape_code(etype, data)
		if err != nil {
			return err
		}
		if metadata == nil {
			return nil
		}
		if reading_available_mimes {
			switch metadata["status"] {
			case "DATA":
				available_mimes = utils.Map(strings.TrimSpace, strings.Split(utils.UnsafeBytesToString(payload), " "))
			case "OK":
			case "DONE":
				reading_available_mimes = false
				if len(available_mimes) == 0 {
					return fmt.Errorf("The clipboard is empty")
				}
				for _, o := range outputs {
					err = o.assign_mime_type(available_mimes, aliases)
					if err != nil {
						return err
					}
					if o.remote_mime_type == "." {
						o.started = true
						o.add_data(utils.UnsafeStringToBytes(strings.Join(available_mimes, "\n")))
						o.all_data_received = true
					} else {
						requested_mimes[o.remote_mime_type] = o
					}
				}
				if len(requested_mimes) > 0 {
					lp.QueueWriteString(encode(basic_metadata, strings.Join(utils.Keys(requested_mimes), " ")))
				} else {
					lp.Quit(0)

View on GitHub (pinned to 6d5d0c4406)

Solutions

1. Copy something first, then retry the get
2. Verify which machine's clipboard you are reading (local vs remote over ssh) and copy there
3. Add a retry/empty-check guard in scripts that poll the clipboard

Example fix

# before
kitten clipboard get out.txt   # nothing copied yet
# after
# copy text in the source app first, then:
kitten clipboard get out.txt

null

out=$(kitten clipboard get f 2>&1) || { echo "$out" | grep -q 'clipboard is empty' && exit 0; exit 1; }  # treat empty as non-error

When it happens

Trigger: `kitten clipboard get`/`getfile` when nothing has ever been copied, or the clipboard was cleared; also when the remote peer reports an empty DATA list (e.g. clipboard cleared on the machine that would serve the data).

Common situations: Scripts running right after boot or clipboard-clear operations; reading a remote clipboard over ssh where the remote clipboard daemon has no content; racing with a clipboard manager that clears on focus loss.

Related errors

• Too much piped data
• Failed to read from STDIN pipe with error: %w
• Failed to create a temporary from STDIN pipe with error: %w
• Failed to copy data from STDIN pipe to temp file with error:
• Invalid base64 encoded data from terminal with error: %w

AI-assisted analysis of kovidgoyal/kitty@6d5d0c4406 (2026-08-27). Data as JSON: /api/errors/aad4b42bc88672e2. Report an issue: GitHub.