Firefox Clipboard in Private Session

[AB1]

Hi, noticed a bug today after firefox auto-updated from 117 to 118.

When using private browsing, nothing copied from firefox is available in Alfred's clipboard.

This wasn't the case prior to the latest firefox update and nor is it an issue in non-private profiles.

Unfortunately, I use private browsing by default so this is a deal breaker as I'm sure you can appreciate copying from browser is one of the most common tasks.

I hope a workaround can be found.

 

Regards,

AB

[Stephen_C]

Welcome to the forum.

 

Yes I can confirm that oddity. I also use Firefox, currently 118.0.1, and, like you, invariably in private browsing.

 

Specifically I confirm:

• that using the standard macOS copy command (⌘C) on selected text in a Firefox private window places nothing on Alfred's clipboard but if you then immediately press ⌘V in a new document the selected text does copy;
• using Popclip copies from a Firefox 118 private window and pastes effectively—but also leaves nothing on Alfred's clipboard;
• using the standard macOS copy command (⌘C) on selected text in a normal Firefox (non-private) window works as expected and places the selected text on Alfred's clipboard.

Stephen

[Stephen_C]

Upon further investigation the solution appears to lie in Alfred Preferences → Features → Clipboard History and then unchecking Ignore clipboard data marked as Concealed.

 

Stephen

[Andrew]

As Stephen discovered, Firefox is now marking copied data from a Private session as concealed. Alfred ignores this by default.

 

I would recommend against unchecking this option in Alfred, as it's best practice to not have concealed data in Alfred's clipboard. The best approach would be to contact Firefox and ask for an option to not conceal the data from a Private session.

 

Here is a relevant post:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1425837

 

Cheers,

Andrew

[AB1]

21 hours ago, Stephen_C said:

Upon further investigation the solution appears to lie in Alfred Preferences → Features → Clipboard History and then unchecking Ignore clipboard data marked as Concealed.

 

Stephen

Lifesaver

[zackeryfretty]

Is there any chance you can expand the concealed feature to whitelist specific apps? 
 

I agree with you that disabling it completely isn’t a good idea - but - having this block in Firefox is brutal for my workflow. 
 

If there was a way only allow concealed data from Firefox that’d be a nice compromise I could live with. 

[zackeryfretty]

No extensions are installed in the private windows, it's definitely a change in Firefox and how they handle clipboard data from private windows since 118. 

[Stephen_C]

Yes—and the only current solution is that mentioned in my earlier post in this thread (subject to Andrew's subsequent warning, of course).

 

Stephen

[zackeryfretty]

Yeah, I know, I just don't want to do that for obvious reasons. 😭

 

Hoping a whitelist is easy as it doesn't seem like Mozilla is going to change this as they see it as a feature.