alfredpanda Posted November 8, 2021 Share Posted November 8, 2021 (edited) macOS Monterey 12.0.1 (although this happened on Big Sur too) Alfred 4.6 I can reproduce this easily. Using excel as an example - I highlight some rows, CMD + C to copy, then immediately CMD + W to close the window. The action of doing this merges to the clipboard. For this not to happen, I need to CMD + C to copy, wait a second, then CMD + W to close the window. Basically the action of quickly using CMD + something after CMD + C seems to trigger the merge functionality. Edited November 8, 2021 by alfredpanda Link to comment
Andrew Posted November 8, 2021 Share Posted November 8, 2021 @alfredpanda The merge happens in Alfred when two consecutive identical entries are see within the macOS Pasteboard, and this happens when using ⌘C twice (e.g. the macOS clipboard counter is at 1001 with "bob", then at 1002 with "bob"). Under normal circumstances on a Mac, you wouldn't be seeing a second clipboard entry when using ⌘C followed by ⌘(something else). Do you have any app installed which manipulates the clipboard or keyboard in any way which could be causing this duplicate clipboard entry? Link to comment
alfredpanda Posted November 8, 2021 Author Share Posted November 8, 2021 (edited) 2 hours ago, Andrew said: @alfredpanda The merge happens in Alfred when two consecutive identical entries are see within the macOS Pasteboard, and this happens when using ⌘C twice (e.g. the macOS clipboard counter is at 1001 with "bob", then at 1002 with "bob"). Under normal circumstances on a Mac, you wouldn't be seeing a second clipboard entry when using ⌘C followed by ⌘(something else). Do you have any app installed which manipulates the clipboard or keyboard in any way which could be causing this duplicate clipboard entry? Hey Andrew. There aren't any other apps installed that should be touching the clipboard or keyboard functionality in any way. I've closed the only other apps I use consistently that use keyboard shortcuts (Cleanshot, Magnet, BetterTouchTool) and it still happens. It might be easier to show you in a video or screenshare the actions I take and what happens? Edited November 8, 2021 by alfredpanda Link to comment
Andrew Posted November 8, 2021 Share Posted November 8, 2021 @alfredpanda I understand what you're explaining so I'm not sure a video would add anything. Could you please create a new user account, switch to that user, activate Alfred there and see if you're seeing the same issue? This will rule out anything installed / interfering on your main profile. Also, does this happen in all apps, or just e.g. Microsoft Excel? Link to comment
alfredpanda Posted November 9, 2021 Author Share Posted November 9, 2021 7 hours ago, Andrew said: @alfredpanda I understand what you're explaining so I'm not sure a video would add anything. Could you please create a new user account, switch to that user, activate Alfred there and see if you're seeing the same issue? This will rule out anything installed / interfering on your main profile. Also, does this happen in all apps, or just e.g. Microsoft Excel? I created a new Admin user from scratch and installed Alfred and had exactly the same issue. Strangely enough it does only seem to be Microsoft Excel. And of course the CMD + W shortcut will only close right away if it's a saved file without changes. (The use-case here is having to manually copy and paste some data out of excel files (without editing the contents) - hence how I've stumbled across this issue many times.) Link to comment
vitor Posted November 9, 2021 Share Posted November 9, 2021 1 hour ago, alfredpanda said: Strangely enough it does only seem to be Microsoft Excel. That makes it less strange, because we now know Excel is the culprit. Have you tried your steps without ⌘C? That is to say, select the rows and press ⌘W then check the clipboard. This is a wild guess, but I remember someone getting unintended clipboard merges in iTerm because it has a feature where just selecting the text copies it. So by selecting then pressing ⌘C, a merge would trigger. Perhaps Excel is trying to be helpful and copy what’s selected when you exit. alfredpanda 1 Link to comment
deanishe Posted November 9, 2021 Share Posted November 9, 2021 3 hours ago, vitor said: Perhaps Excel is trying to be helpful and copy what’s selected when you exit. Messing with the clipboard on exit definitely is something MS Office does. The apps have a feature to purge the clipboard if there's a lot of Office data still on it. alfredpanda and smammy 2 Link to comment
alfredpanda Posted November 10, 2021 Author Share Posted November 10, 2021 (edited) On 11/9/2021 at 11:15 AM, vitor said: That makes it less strange, because we now know Excel is the culprit. Have you tried your steps without ⌘C? That is to say, select the rows and press ⌘W then check the clipboard. This is a wild guess, but I remember someone getting unintended clipboard merges in iTerm because it has a feature where just selecting the text copies it. So by selecting then pressing ⌘C, a merge would trigger. Perhaps Excel is trying to be helpful and copy what’s selected when you exit. I tried this but it didn't do anything. It only merge when pressing CMD + W to close. Here's a video recording where you can see what I do and hear the merge sound: https://cln.sh/lpasOC9EASzt3Jv0Vako and here are my settings: Edited November 10, 2021 by alfredpanda Added settings Link to comment
vitor Posted November 11, 2021 Share Posted November 11, 2021 4 hours ago, alfredpanda said: I tried this but it didn't do anything. It only merge when pressing CMD + W to close. The suggestion wasn’t to make it merge, but to make it copy only. The point was to select the rows, press ⌘W, then see if the row contents show in the clipboard. Link to comment
alfredpanda Posted November 11, 2021 Author Share Posted November 11, 2021 12 hours ago, vitor said: The suggestion wasn’t to make it merge, but to make it copy only. The point was to select the rows, press ⌘W, then see if the row contents show in the clipboard. Apologies, I didn't write that post properly. Selecting a row and pressing ⌘W does not add the contents to the clipboard. Link to comment
alfredpanda Posted November 24, 2021 Author Share Posted November 24, 2021 So is this just a quirk of Excel that I'll have to put up with? Thanks 🙂 Link to comment
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