QPaste

Copy continuously. Paste sequentially. Zero tab-switching required.

Download Installer  ·  Download Portable  ·  Documentation

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📖 Overview

The Problem

The standard Windows clipboard holds only a single item at a time. Copying a new snippet immediately overwrites the previous one. When collecting multiple pieces of text across documents or web pages, you have to constantly switch back and forth between windows to copy and paste each item individually.

The Solution

QPaste adds a First-In, First-Out (FIFO) queue on top of your clipboard. When Queue Mode is active:

• Copy Phase: Copy multiple items in sequence (Ctrl+C). Each item is added to the back of the queue.
• Paste Phase: Paste items in the exact order they were copied (Ctrl+V). Each paste retrieves the oldest item from the queue.

When the queue is empty, Ctrl+V reverts to standard Windows paste behavior. QPaste runs quietly in your System Tray without console windows or taskbar icons.

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✨ What's New

• Customizable Hotkeys: Remap F4, Shift+F4, and F3 directly from the Settings tab to any combo (e.g. Ctrl+Alt+V, F8). Applies live without restarting!
• Quick Notepad HUD (F3): Frameless, dark-themed scratchpad that floats over any window. Automatically saves on every keystroke, persists across reboots, and dismisses instantly with Escape.
• Office / Word Multi-Copy Shield: Built-in 200ms debounce filter that eliminates duplicate items and notification spam when copying formatted text in Microsoft Word and Excel.
• Activity-Based Auto-Clear: Queue expiration now tracks actual user activity. As long as you are actively copying or pasting, your queue stays alive and only clears after true inactivity.
• Modular Settings UI: Dedicated settings tab in the Queue Inspector for hotkey validation, auto-clear modes, and 1-click defaults reset.

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⚡ Core Features

• Sequential FIFO Queue: Thread-safe queue supporting up to 25 items in memory.
• System Tray Execution: Runs silently in the background with a system tray icon and dynamic context menu.
• Non-Intrusive Overlay: Brief floating toast notification displays status (QPaste : ON / OFF) and queue counts without stealing window focus.
• Queue Inspector GUI: Minimal dark-themed window to inspect queued snippets, delete individual items, or clear the entire queue.
• Start with Windows: Toggleable registry integration for silent startup on boot.
• Single Instance Enforcement: Win32 Named Mutex prevents duplicate background processes and hotkey conflicts.
• Clipboard Lock Protection: Automatic retry handler for transient Windows clipboard locks.

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⌨️ Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action	Configurable
F4	Toggle Queue Mode ON / OFF	Yes
Shift + F4	Clear all queued items	Yes
F3	Toggle Quick Notepad HUD	Yes
Ctrl + C	Copy text (queued sequentially when active)	Native
Ctrl + V	Paste next item from queue (standard paste when empty/OFF)	Native

To customize shortcuts: Open the Queue Inspector via tray icon, click Settings, and type your preferred key combo into any field. Click Reset Defaults anytime to return to the original bindings.

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📥 Installation

Direct Downloads

• QPaste_Setup_v1.1.0.exe — Standard Windows installer. Installs to %LocalAppData%\Programs\QPaste, adds Start Menu shortcuts, autostart option, and uninstaller.
• QPaste.exe — Standalone portable executable. No installation required.

Package Managers

# Windows Package Manager (winget)
winget install QPaste

# Scoop
scoop bucket add qpaste https://github.com/chinthanasathyajithcs/qpaste
scoop install qpaste

# Chocolatey
choco install qpaste

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🛠️ Development

Prerequisites

• Python 3.11+
• Windows 10 / 11
• PyInstaller (for building executable)
• Inno Setup 6 (for building installer)

Setup & Execution

# Clone repository
git clone https://github.com/chinthanasathyajithcs/qpaste.git
cd qpaste

# Create and activate virtual environment
python -m venv src\.venv
.\src\.venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1

# Install dependencies
pip install -r src\requirements.txt

# Run application
python src\main.py

# Run test suite
python3 -m unittest discover -s src/tests

Building Binaries

# Standalone executable -> dist/QPaste.exe
python -m PyInstaller qpaste.spec

# Setup installer -> installer/Output/QPaste_Setup_v1.1.0.exe
ISCC.exe installer\qpaste_setup.iss

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📁 Project Structure

qpaste/
├── assets/                  # App icon assets & demo animation GIF
├── docs/                    # Product Requirements Document
├── installer/               # Inno Setup compilation script & installer output
├── src/
│   ├── core/
│   │   ├── clipboard_queue.py   # Thread-safe FIFO queue with idle tracking
│   │   ├── config.py            # Persistent JSON settings manager
│   │   ├── hotkey_parser.py     # Hotkey parser, combo normalizer & matcher
│   │   ├── listener.py          # Keyboard hooks, debounce & clipboard listener
│   │   ├── single_instance.py   # Win32 Named Mutex enforcement
│   │   ├── startup.py           # Windows registry autostart manager
│   │   └── state.py             # Active queue state manager
│   ├── ui/
│   │   ├── inspector.py         # Queue Inspector GUI
│   │   ├── notepad.py           # Floating Quick Notepad HUD overlay
│   │   ├── settings_tab.py      # Hotkey & Auto-Clear configuration tab
│   │   └── toast.py             # Focusless toast overlay
│   ├── tests/                   # 79 automated unit and integration tests
│   └── main.py                  # Application entry point & tray manager
└── qpaste.spec              # PyInstaller build spec

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📄 License

MIT License © 2026 ChinthanaSathyajith.

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