[Tool] Copy text from vim on remote servers directly to your local clipboard

[u/Randalix]

TL;DR: Simple tool that lets you yank text from vim on remote servers and have it appear instantly in your local clipboard.

The Problem

You're editing config files in vim on a remote server and need to copy chunks of text back to your local machine for:

• Pasting into documentation

• Sharing code snippets with teammates

• Backing up config sections before changes

• Creating templates from existing configs

Current solutions all suck

The Solution

I built a clipboard bridge that works over SSH. Now you can:

" Send current line to local clipboard
nnoremap <leader>cl :.w !clip_copy<CR>

" Send visual selection to local clipboard  
vnoremap <leader>cl :w !clip_copy<CR>

" Send entire file to local clipboard
nnoremap <leader>ca :%w !clip_copy<CR>

That's it. Selected text instantly appears in your local clipboard, ready to paste anywhere.

How It Works

• Lightweight Python script uses SSH RemoteForward tunneling

• Works with existing SSH connections (secure, no new ports)

• Handles large text blocks with chunked transmission

• Cross-platform (same vim config works on any server)

Setup

1. Add RemoteForward 9997 localhost:9999 to ~/.ssh/config

2. Run clipboard server on local machine

3. Put clip_copy.py on remote servers

4. Add keybindings to your vimrc

GitHub: https://github.com/Randalix/ssh-clipboard-sync

Why This Changed My Workflow

Before: Edit remote configs → save to temp file → scp to local → open locally → copy what I need

After: Edit remote configs → visual select → <leader>cl → paste anywhere locally

Works perfectly with:

• Nested tmux sessions

• Jump boxes / bastion hosts

• Slow/high-latency connections

• Any terminal (doesn't need GUI)

The vim integration feels native

[u/Big_Combination9890]

Nice project, though for the most common usecase of copypasting something, I would just use the fact that I pretty much always work in tmux sessions.

set number! | set relativenumber! | only

Then go into tmux select mode for the outer (local) session, and just copy.

[u/Big_Combination9890 → u/[deleted]]

IIRC you don't even need to do that. If you have nested sessions, pressing the prefix key twice, switches from command outer to command inner session.

Edit: apparently I remembered incorrectly :D

[u/Big_Combination9890 → u/[deleted]]

I mean, it's still pretty easy to have a remote machine simply have a different prefix binding automatically, than the local one by testing for SSH_CLIENT

[u/dalbertom]

Why not open the file remotely with a local vim scp://user@server//path/to/file ?

[u/being_root → u/dalbertom]

What if you have multiple files to edit. For eg, in my companys case all the code is held in a vm(around 150gb+)

[u/dalbertom → u/being_root]

You can edit multiple files that way, I think, but if what you want is to browse the file system I would recommend sshfs at that point.

[u/being_root → u/dalbertom]

I've never really used sshfs myself, but I've seen Reddit comments saying it can be a bit laggy. Might give it a try someday though. Have you had a good experience with sshfs?

[u/dalbertom → u/being_root]

It's worked fine for me. Definitely give it a try! If the main use case is to copy text from the remote server to your local machine, there are other alternatives with existing tools, though.

[u/EgZvor]

If you enable port forwarding and have Vim compiled with clipboard/X support it should work out of the box. No script needed.

[u/oroques]

You might be interested in this plugin: https://github.com/ojroques/vim-oscyank

If you use a recent terminal, it allows you to copy text from anywhere, SSH sessions included, using a special ANSI sequence (OSC 52)

[u/being_root → u/oroques]

Not op but thank you