Clipboard: 'Auto paste on return' stopped working

[adamvert]

For some reason the 'Auto paste on return' function of the Alfred clipboard stopped working for me a couple of days ago. I didn't realise how much I rely on it until it stopped working

 

The clipboard window opens as normal when I hit the shortcut, but the selected entry isn't pasted when I hit return. I don't really know how to go about debugging this - has anyone had a similar issue?

 

Thanks

Adam

[vitor]

Alfred Preferences → Features → Clipboard → Advanced → Pasting. Is Auto paste on return selected or deselected?

[adamvert]

It's selected.

[Vero]

@adamvert It'd be helpful to understand in what conditions it hasn't been working for you.

 

- Could you please try with a plain text file as frontmost app, just to ensure it's not the destination causing an issue in some way?

- Do you use multiple clipboard managers that could be interfering with each other? 

- Seems simple, but have you tried restarting your Mac?

 

And finally, which version of Alfred are you currently using?

 

Cheers,
Vero

[adamvert]

Huh, I just restarted my Mac and it works again!

Thank you for suggesting the obvious

[politicus]

@vero 

 

Same problem here!

 

- OS X 10.12.6 

- Alfred 3 v3.5.1 (883)

- Auto paste on return is selected.

 

Here is what I've done. 

 

In Sublime Text, copied first file content to Alfred clipboard, then second file content to Alfred clipboard.

Hit Alt-Tab to select Textedit. Released all the keys when Textedit was selected. 

Expected the appended clipboard to be pasted. 

Nothing happened.

 

Tried restarting my My Mac.

Tried with and without Textexpander.

Auto paste not working in any case.

 

Any idea? 

 

Thank you.

Edited December 28, 2017 by politicus

[Vero]

@politicus I've re-read your description a few times and I think you may be misunderstanding the feature.

 

Auto-paste simply means that when you select an item in your clipboard and press Return, the item is pasted right away to your frontmost application rather than just being copied back to your current clipboard. You still need to select the clipboard item.

 

You seem to be confusing Clipboard Merge (where Cmd + C on the first item, and Cmd + C + C on the second item results in the second item being merged with the first one) and Auto-Paste when pressing the Return key.

 

7 hours ago, politicus said:

Hit Alt-Tab to select Textedit. Released all the keys when Textedit was selected. 

Expected the appended clipboard to be pasted. 

 

Once you've used Alt + Tab to change the focused app, you'll need to select the clipboard content to paste.

 

Cheers,
Vero

[politicus]

@vero Thank you for the clarification! 

[bibek]

Was also experiencing this on Alfred v4. I was also seeing system commands like "Lock" not work. 

 

Turns out I just needed to grant Alfred "macOS Accessibility" permissions via Alfred Preferences > General > Request Permissions and follow the instructions for Accessibility.

[AndrewS]

Auto-paste on return is also not working for me.  I've tried disabling and enabling the option to no avail.  Have tried the feature on terminal, iterm, and Sublime Text. 

 

Alfred 4.0.5 [1114]

Edited October 10, 2019 by AndrewS

[Vero]

@AndrewS Did you follow the same steps highlighted by @bibek?

 

On 10/3/2019 at 2:23 AM, bibek said:

Turns out I just needed to grant Alfred "macOS Accessibility" permissions via Alfred Preferences > General > Request Permissions and follow the instructions for Accessibility.

 

Without accessibility permissions (which you'll need to grant if you've just upgraded your OS), Alfred won't be able to auto-paste.

 

Cheers,
Vero

[scottmm]

Same here. Auto paste is not working on enter.

MacOS version: 10.15.1 (19B2106)

Alfred version: 4.0.6

 

Things I've tried:

- granted accessibility permissions for Alfred 4 

- restarted Alfred

- restarted computer

[Vero]

@scottmm If you granted permissions before upgrading to Catalina, it sounds like a few users are seeing corrupted permissions during the upgrade.

 

Remove Alfred 4 from the permissions and grant access again. See if that solves the issue. Unfortunately, we can't fix the OS, that's down to Apple, so all you can do is request permissions again.

 

Cheers,
Vero

[marcolago]

Hi @Vero.
I’m writing here because I’ve just updated (sigh) to Catalina and I have the same problem.

I've already controlled the accessibility option, disabled and re-enabled Alfred, rebooted the mac and so on, but without success.

 

Here's my Alfred Configuration.

 

 

 

I also tried to set Keep Plain Text to only 7 Days but nothing changes.

 

I still have my old Mojave Mac with the same configuration and, when selecting an item in the Clipboard History and pressing Return the text is pasted as expected.

On Catalina it fails and I have to Command + V to paste the text.

 

Thanks for the support.

marcolago

[Vero]

@marcolago Welcome to the forum

 

As I understand it, on your Catalina Mac, you can get as far as successfully copying items to the clipboard, so that if you look at the Clipboard Viewer, it's populated with your recent clips?

 

The issue happens when you try to paste from the Clipboard Viewer window, where the item doesn't paste with Return?

 

Could you please:

• Check that you don't have any third-party apps installed that would either be messing with clipboard contents or with the focused app?
• Do you hear an error beep when trying to paste? This would indicate that there's no focused window to paste to.
• Have you modified the Cmd + V basic paste hotkey combination in your Catalina install so that when Alfred dispatches a Cmd + V to paste, the command doesn't work?
• Try in TextEdit, which is one of the simplest native apps, and let me know whether you're able to paste there.
• If you are able to paste, which apps are you unable to paste to? Could these apps have their own clipboard/hotkey management which is interfering?

Let me know how you get on

 

Cheers,
Vero

[marcolago]

Hi @Vero
Thanks for the response.
You are right, I copy strings and I find them in the Alfred Clipboard History.
I recall the Clipboard History panel with my custom combination Ctrl+Shift+V, then select the snippet I want to past and hit Return.
In Mojave the selected snipped is immediately pasted in the focused application.
In Catalina nothing happens but the selected snippet is correctly put as the first item in Clipboard History List.

I've checked what you asked me and here the results:

• Check that you don't have any third-party apps installed that would either be messing with clipboard contents or with the focused app?
  I migrated my time machine backup from my old macBook Pro to my new 16". I do not have any new application. On the old Mojave OS evething runs fine.
   
• Do you hear an error beep when trying to paste? This would indicate that there's no focused window to paste to.
  No, no alert sounds.
   
• Have you modified the Cmd + V basic paste hotkey combination in your Catalina install so that when Alfred dispatches a Cmd + V to paste, the command doesn't work?
  No, Cmd+V to paste is my default. I open the Alfred clipboard history with Ctrl+Shift+V (like I’ve always done since the first time I customised Alfred years ago).
   
• Try in TextEdit, which is one of the simplest native apps, and let me know whether you're able to paste there.
  Not working. I need to made an additional Cmd+V AFTER hitting the return key.
  I could record a screen capture if you need.
   
• If you are able to paste, which apps are you unable to paste to? Could these apps have their own clipboard/hotkey management which is interfering?
  I was not able to paste hitting return.
   

Thanks again for your support.
marcolago

[Vero]

@marcolago Could you please launch Alfred's preferences to the General tab? Click on Request Permissions... then go through the process of removing and re-adding Alfred to all currently used permission types.

 

If you migrated from Mojave to Catalina from a backup, there's a good chance that macOS has lost track of your permissions, and isn't allowing Alfred to use automation.

 

Try again once you've removed and re-added Alfred from Automation (and any other relevant permissions you've granted). Let me know how you get on

 

Cheers,
Vero

[marcolago]

Hi @Vero

I've just completed the tasks you suggested but nothing changed.

I have to say that Alfred is neither registered nor addable in Automation (There are not + and - icons in the Automation tab).

 

Every other permission was removed, then rebooted, then readded.

Still not working, sorry.

 

Thanks

marcolago

[marcolago]

Hi @Vero, one more thing.

I’ve installed, long time ago, the workflow Change Case by Jay Gillybrand.

I’ve always used it performing these actions:

1. select some text
2. hit Cmd+C
3. open Alfred, then write "case" as trigger command
4. select the desired case
5. hit Return to paste the transformed string

Since the Catalina update the step 5 fails.

Checking the clipboad history reveals that the transformed text is on top of the list, ready to be pasted.

 

I hope this could be useful to investigate.

Thanks

marcolago

[=H=]

Hi, new here but a long time Alfred fan. Keep up the great work!

I was able to fix this by removing and re-adding Alfred from the Accessibility panel. 

 

Steps: 

• Go to System Preferences
• Open Security & Privacy
• Go to Accessibility
• Click the lock
• Select Alfred 4
• Click the minus
• Drag the Alfred 4 application from your Applications Folder onto the Privacy panel and make sure the checkbox is checked.

 

Hope this helps someone!
 

Edited March 19, 2020 by =H=

[hyeon gyu]

@=H= 

'Auto paste on return' functionality did not work after the Alfred 4.0.9 update. Thanks to you, I was able to fix it. Thank you very much.

 

[marcolago]

@=H=

Now it works.

Thanks!

[Rick Han]

On 3/19/2020 at 8:25 PM, =H= said:

Hi, new here but a long time Alfred fan. Keep up the great work!

I was able to fix this by removing and re-adding Alfred from the Accessibility panel. 

 

Steps: 

• Go to System Preferences
• Open Security & Privacy
• Go to Accessibility
• Click the lock
• Select Alfred 4
• Click the minus
• Drag the Alfred 4 application from your Applications Folder onto the Privacy panel and make sure the checkbox is checked.

 

Hope this helps someone!
 

This resolved my problem. Thanks!

[Elijen]

Auto-paste only works properly if I access the clipboard viewer using the shortcut. It fails when accessed via Alfred keywoard. I think it's something with app/window focus as manual pasting does not work either until I focus a different app/window then I am able to paste manually.

[Vero]

@Elijen Could you please provide more details? When you say accessing through keyword, are you referring to the snip keyword?

 

Which apps are you pasting to? Please test this using TextEdit in plain text mode, to ensure the destination app isn't playing a part in the issue.

 

Could you also please let me know which version of Alfred and macOS you're using?

 

Cheers,
Vero