[matthewmacleod]

I want to chip in here with a rant of my own because I absolutely fucking hate this feature. The idea that something I think of as a passive action—selecting text—can destructively alter my clipboard makes my skin crawl, and it's baffling that anyone thinks it's a replacement.

The thing is it's the default on iTerm2 on the Mac, so every time I set it up I spend a week thinking "why is my clipboard always completely full of shite" before I remember and turn it off.

(YMMV, you may like this, you may actually have proper clipboard management, and so on. I didn't say this was a logically consistent rant.)

[michaelmrose]

I don't think Mac OS actually natively supports select to copy so ITerm2 as an app implements it by filling the same clipboard buffer you would otherwise use.

X11 by contrast has by default 2 buffers so you never clobber your buffer filled by control+c however some clipboard management software optionally syncs the 2 buffers bringing back the behavior you dislike.

[toxik]

That’s not true, iTerm2 doesn’t overwrite your clipboard. It, like it’s forebears, uses a separate selection buffer. The only way to paste from it is middle mouse button as far as I know.

[matthewmacleod]

It 100% does. The "Copy to pasteboard on selection" option causes selected text to overwrite whatever's on the clipboard, and I just checked.

It's possible that this isn't enabled by default, but I'm virtually certain it is because it catches me out every time.

[toxik]

Aha well then, we have differing experiences