How to listen for a copy in Android

Question

To get myself a little more familiar with content providers in Android, I'm making a small clipboard manager app. Its core functionality is to simply add whatever you copy to a database to display. I'm somewhat familiar with Android's Clipboard framework, but what I'm not sure how to do is to listen for copy "events" to know that a new item needs to be added to the clipboard.

To clarify, I need to be able to add a record to the database whenever the user copies something. How do I do this?

Did you mean to suggest a different question @Jack? Your current link seems to lead right back to this question. — theisenp, Aug 03 '11 at 18:41

score 10 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 03 '11 at 18:37

10

If you are using API level 11 (3.0) or above, then you can use addPrimaryClipChangedListener which is documented here and there is some example usage here.

answered Aug 03 '11 at 18:37

Eugene S

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Thanks. That kind of stinks that there's no solution for this for older APIs. – Tyler Treat Aug 03 '11 at 21:14
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True, but if you're really desperate for it, you can try the suggestion below and just check the clipboard every so often (using a service). – Eugene S Aug 04 '11 at 03:40
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Is this answer still valid for apps that are targeting Android 10 (api 29)? I have an app that has been using this method for the past few years to listen for clip events. Once I upgraded to api 29 it stopped working, and it seems like it might be related to Androids recent restrictions on foreground services. Wondering if you have any insights for this? – jwenz723 Sep 24 '19 at 07:10
@jwenz723 A service can't grab anything from the clipboardmanager when it's main app isn't in focus. This is how it works from Android Q (10). There is no workarounds as this has been deemed a security risk by Google. To clarify: You can't even get whatever is currently in the clipboard when your main app is out of focus. – Warpzit Oct 04 '19 at 07:57

score 8 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 27 '14 at 23:39

Put inside your class:

ClipboardManager.OnPrimaryClipChangedListener mPrimaryChangeListener = new ClipboardManager.OnPrimaryClipChangedListener() {
        public void onPrimaryClipChanged() {

            // this will be called whenever you copy something to the clipboard
        }
    };

Put this inside onCreate method:

ClipboardManager clipboard = (ClipboardManager) this.getSystemService(Context.CLIPBOARD_SERVICE);
clipboard.addPrimaryClipChangedListener(mPrimaryChangeListener);

That's all. I hope I helped you.

score 2 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:06

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What API do you have? This answer: Listener for clipboard content change? seems to suggest that there is a way for android 3.0 and higher, but not lower, unfortunately.

The only other thing I can think of is making a service, querying the clipboard every so often to see if it has changed or has new text. This can be easily done using ClipBoardManager.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:06

Community

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answered Aug 03 '11 at 18:35

Otra

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How to listen for a copy in Android

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