ClipSaver - save & convert images from clipboard history in various formats

[luckman212]

Latest release: v2.3.5

 

Hey guys,

 

Thought I'd share this little workflow. I found myself often needing to dump out the last N clipboard images from Alfred's history to disk. It was tedious before, find the right item, copy it back to the pasteboard, paste into Preview, save as PNG, give it a non-overlapping name, etc. So I created this to make it semi-automatic. Shouldn't need anything special, but please let me know if you run into any trouble.

 

Feedback welcome! One thing for sure I would like some advice on is whether the Script Filter (Python) could be turned back into a List Comprehension which from what I've read is more efficient. I couldn't figure out how to do that and also dynamically update the database rows (e.g. converting "/" to " / " so that Alfred's word matching would match correctly, picking a nicer generic icon when app name==null etc). @deanishe if you have time I'm sure you know the answer to this...  

 

 

 

GitHub

https://github.com/luckman212/alfred_clipsaver_workflow

 

Download Latest Release:

https://github.com/luckman212/alfred_clipsaver_workflow/releases/latest/

 

 

Edited March 15, 2023 by luckman212

[luckman212]

Just to clarify what I was asking about above with the List Comprehensions, I'm talking about this.

 

Populating the list using List Comprehension

items = []
with database(dbpath) as db:
    rows = db.execute("SELECT foo...)
    items = [{ "title": r[1],
               "arg": r[0]
             } for r in rows ]

Populating the list using a loop and append (this is the current method used)

items = []
with database(db_path) as db:
    rows = db.execute("SELECT bar...)
    for r in rows:
      if r[2] == None:
        (...do stuff...)
      else:
        (...do other stuff...)
      items.append({ "title": r[1],
                     "arg": r[0]
                   })

My question is, is there a way to use the List Comprehension method while still allowing for the if/then/else code to execute?

[deanishe]

2 hours ago, luckman212 said:

My question is, is there a way to use the List Comprehension method while still allowing for the if/then/else code to execute?

 

Not in this case, no. But forget about it. The difference in performance is absolutely miniscule and list comprehensions should be used sparingly. Readable code is more important that the tiny bit of speed you get from replacing a loop with a list comprehension.

 

2 hours ago, luckman212 said:

if r[2] == None:

 

if r[2] is None: is the more idiomatic way to test for None.

[luckman212]

Much appreciated. I have a few other things planned for this workflow, I'll definitely make that adjustment.

[luckman212]

I uploaded v1.0.3 that has that change and 1 other small fix for bulk mode.

[luckman212]

v 1.1.0 uploaded, changes the bulk mode from a keyword trigger to a script filter so it can do some additional error checking and grab max_clips by counting the # if images in the history.

[noisyneil]

This is brilliant! Would you be able to tell me how to get the files to save straight to the desktop, rather than create a folder each time? I looked at the code block to try and change the directory but couldn't find "saved_clips". 

[luckman212]

@noisyneil sure, all you would need to do is edit the "dest_dir" workflow variable and set it to just "Desktop":

 

[noisyneil]

Wow! I didn't even know Alfred had a variables viewer!! Thanks! That works perfectly! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

[luckman212]

Great. Yes I suggest you learn a little more about the Workflows, they are very powerful. Each workflow has its own variables. Start here: https://www.alfredapp.com/help/workflows/advanced/variables/

[noisyneil]

I'm a big Keyboard Maestro fan, so I totally understand the usefulness of variables; just never built anything complex enough to require them in Alfred. Thanks for the link - I'll get learning! 

[luckman212]

Moved this to its own repo and updated slightly to v2.0.4

 

see original post...

[cartern]

I got error below even there is a pic in the clip.

 

[luckman212]

Ok, let me see if I can help.

 

1. Can you post a screenshot or copy/paste the output of your Alfred debugger console?

 

2. Please post a screenshot of the workflow's Environment Variables area.

 

3. What version of Alfred and macOS are you running?

 

4. And finally, can you open a Terminal and type "python3 -VV" and paste that output here as well?

[evanfuchs]

Any idea why the list of images returned by this workflow would be different than Alfred's Clipboard History feature? When I take a screenshot to the clipboard, it appears in Alfred's results but not in this workflows results. Not sure what other info to provide to help me troubleshoot.

[luckman212]

@evanfuchs Does the workflow return any results? My initial thought is: you may have configured the database path incorrectly. If you open Alfred's debugger (⌘D from the Workflow screen) and trigger the workflow, what's the output there? Any errors? (maybe you can paste the results to a pastebin...)

[evanfuchs]

@luckman212 Thanks for the reply. Yes, it does show results, but only partial results compared to Alfred's Clipboard History feature.

 

No errors in the debug window, but I looked at the database folder as configured in the workflow, and I found a subfolder "clipboard.alfdb.data" with two types of files: tiff and plist, where each plist is a reference to a file in my screen shots folder. This workflow seems to be showing the tiffs, but not the items referenced in the plists. Alfred's Clipboard History shows both. I hope that explanation makes sense and is helpful!

Edited February 15, 2023 by evanfuchs

[luckman212]

@evanfuchs I may be misunderstanding, sorry if that's the case, but—the purpose of this workflow is to only show/save IMAGES. So it is expected that the workflow's results will be limited to the TIFFs only, and will be different from Alfred's clipboard history which would contain all items: files, text etc. Are you expecting something different?

[evanfuchs]

I am talking about images only. It seems some items in Alfred’s history are not stored directly in that location, but rather as references (plists) to images in another location. Alfred shows all the images (those actually in the folder and those referenced) but this workflow doesn’t seem to see the referenced images. I don’t know enough about Alfred works under the hood to explain further. Just an observation. 

[luckman212]

The workflow reads directly from Alfred's SQLite database, so it's very unexpected that the results would be different from what you see in Alfred's native UI. I am not in front of my computer now, but I'll update this post later with some diagnostic commands to run, hopefully that may shed some light on what's going on here.

[evanfuchs]

Okay sounds good. Thanks for sticking with me. I will check back later. 

[luckman212]

@evanfuchs Ok let's start with some basics:

 

Open a Terminal and try entering in the following commands. Please copy & paste the results to a pastebin.

 

 

cd "$HOME/Library/Application Support/Alfred/Databases"

ls -l clipboard.alfdb.data

sqlite3 -header clipboard.alfdb 'SELECT * FROM clipboard WHERE dataType == 1'

 

 

Finally, open Alfred and select the Workflows tab, then open the Debugger console (⌘D) and trigger ClipSaver. Copy and paste the JSON output to a separate pastebin.

Edited February 24, 2023 by luckman212

[oorbx]

On 11/18/2022 at 8:31 AM, cartern said:

I got error below even there is a pic in the clip.

 

 

very strange, i have same error

 

anyhow i see in alfred snippet clipboard image as the latest one, this error message will occurs.

[luckman212]

@oorbx What does your Debug console output look like in Alfred? Please post it- same steps that I was looking to see from Evan Fuchs above

[oorbx]

On 2/26/2023 at 12:26 AM, luckman212 said:

@oorbx What does your Debug console output look like in Alfred? Please post it- same steps that I was looking to see from Evan Fuchs above

 

Hey there, sorry i dont know how to work and share pastebin. I paste there, but i dont know whats next.

 

Thats why i paste to here:

 

Last login: Sun Feb 26 09:11:38 on ttys000
xxx@MacBook-xPro ~ % cd "$HOME/Library/Application Support/Alfred/Databases"

xxx@MacBook-xPro Databases % ls -l clipboard.alfdb.data
total 24
-rw-r--r--@ 1 xxx  staff  335 26 feb 09:11 23cb2faaa08dc4b7aa34cbac2d28d4ba425b0709.plist
-rw-r--r--@ 1 xxx  staff  245 25 feb 21:47 2890925619460226d9da225abed2e2bae052c769.plist
-rw-r--r--@ 1 xxx  staff  244 25 feb 22:07 348bfa64dacc725130316704bc58ace684e4c291.plist
xxx@MacBook-xPro Databases % sqlite3 -header clipboard.alfdb 'SELECT * FROM
clipboard WHERE dataType == 1'
xxx@MacBook-xPro Databases %

 

 

[09:15:51.908] Logging Started...
[09:16:18.154] ClipSaver[Script Filter] Queuing argument '(null)'
[09:16:18.190] ClipSaver[Script Filter] Script with argv '(null)' finished
[09:16:18.196] ClipSaver[Script Filter] {"variables": {"uidSeed": "1677399378.185623"}, "skipknowledge": true, "items": [{"title": "No image clips found", "subtitle": "clipboard history may be empty", "icon": {"path": "error.png"}, "valid": false}]}

 

 

Edited March 1, 2023 by oorbx