04 Core capability

Clipboard & Transfer

Copy here, paste there — and send the file too.

One clipboard across the machines you own, and files that move between them over an authenticated fabric or a plain LAN. A transfer is offered before it lands: the receiver sees name, size and digest, consents, and only then do bytes stage, get verified, and publish with a single rename. It also speaks stock LocalSend, so a device you can reach without an account is still a device you can send to.

  • 11Working today
  • 1Being built
  • 2Planned
How it works

The mechanism, not the metaphor.

  1. 01 Copy or pick

    A clipboard change, or a chosen path, becomes a typed immutable snapshot.

  2. 02 Find the device

    mDNS, a LocalSend registration or a subnet scan puts the peer in the directory.

  3. 03 Offer and consent

    The receiver reviews exact name, size and digest, and answers before any byte moves.

  4. 04 Bound data plane

    Bytes stream on a grant-bound channel whose origin the transport stamps, not the sender.

  5. 05 Verify

    Exact length and SHA-256, checked through a pinned descriptor.

  6. 06 Publish or apply

    One no-replace rename out of the staging area — or a pasteboard write recorded before it happens.

What is in it

14 capabilities, and where each one stands.

One clipboard

  • Working today Live clipboard sync

    A copy on one machine lands on another machine's real pasteboard.

  • Working today Loop suppression

    An applied remote entry is never re-announced, so two devices stop echoing.

  • Working today Per-device admit policy

    Deny by default. Off means the daemon never reads your clipboard at all.

  • Working today Sensitive-content filtering

    A password is redacted before it can reach capture or history.

  • Planned Images and rich content

    Text, HTML, RTF and screenshots, under size ceilings.

  • Planned History and search

    Retain, search and restore what you copied earlier.

Sending files

  • Working today Offer and consent

    Nothing a peer or a stranger sends reaches disk before somebody says yes.

  • Working today Resume, twice over

    Survives a cut link and a killed daemon. It continues into what already arrived.

  • Working today SHA-256 verification

    Bytes checked through a pinned descriptor, not a path re-resolved later.

  • Working today Atomic publish

    A partial file never appears under its real name. One no-replace rename.

  • Working today Cancel and progress

    Watch receiver-verified bytes; a cancel releases the stage on both sides.

Finding the other device

  • Working today LocalSend interop

    Send to and receive from stock LocalSend clients. No account involved.

  • Working today mDNS discovery and LAN scan

    Find peers by multicast, by registration, or by sweeping the subnet.

  • Being built Merged device directory

    One list of everything reachable, where the row decides which wire a send takes.

Measured, not asserted

Numbers from tests that ran.

  • 192 MiB

    A transfer whose receiver was killed a quarter of the way through. It resumes into what arrived, and is not asked a second time.

  • LocalSend 2.1

    Interop proven against software that is not ours, both directions, on a second Mac — message, PIN and browser Web Share.

  • Nothing staged

    What a declined offer leaves behind, asserted by reading the destination directory rather than trusting a return value.

  • Two X displays

    Clipboard sync proven across two containers with separate displays — and stopped dead by emptying the admit list.

And what it is not

  • Not a cloud clipboard. No central server ever holds the content; it is peer-to-peer over the encrypted fabric.
  • Not clipboard history yet. Today an entry is applied to the pasteboard and forgotten.
  • Not friend-to-friend sending. Sending a file to somebody who is not you is a later gate, on purpose.
  • Not one row per physical machine. A device seen over LAN and over the fabric stays two rows — merging on alias or IP is how a stranger inherits trust.

Start with the devices you already own.

Make them work
as one.

The open core is ready to explore. Build your personal device fabric with Xross.

Open-source core · Direct by design · Your devices, your fabric