I wanted Win+V on GNOME, so I built it

WinV keeps a compact, searchable history of clipboard text and images. It also includes offline emoji and Unicode symbol pickers, keyboard navigation, pinning, editing, private mode, and an optional Super+V shortcut.

This is the version I use myself, and for me it is already just fine. I am sharing it because it may be useful to somebody else—not because it is trying to become a giant clipboard product.

How it works

The extension listens for clipboard ownership changes through GNOME Shell instead of polling. Ordinary history stays in memory and vanishes when Shell ends. Only pinned items are saved locally, in a file restricted to your user account. Selecting an item restores it to the clipboard and can optionally ask Mutter to send Ctrl+V to the previously focused app.

• Text plus PNG, JPEG, and WebP history
• Search, arrow keys, Enter to paste, Delete to remove
• Pinning, multiline text editing, and bounded history
• Best-effort filtering for protected password-manager formats
• No network code and no ordinary clipboard history written to disk

Install and try it

git clone https://github.com/leo98ml/win-v.git
cd win-v
make check
make install
make enable
make configure-shortcut

A first installation may require logging out and back in before GNOME Shell discovers the extension. The supported target is Ubuntu 26.04, GNOME Shell 50, and Wayland.

Fork it, change it, make it yours

Feel free to fork WinV, add whatever you find useful, simplify things, update it for your setup, fix rough edges, or send a pull request. There is no grand product roadmap to protect. The only strong preference is that changes keep clipboard data local and treat it as sensitive.

Bug reports and documentation improvements are welcome too. If your version goes in a different direction, that is exactly what forks are for.