pbcopy
Shares rank 73 of 86 privilege escalation tools by recommenders
Built-in macOS commands that pipe text into and out of the clipboard from the terminal. Critics say copies can pick up a newline and rich text is not supported.
Built-in macOS commands that pipe text into and out of the clipboard from the terminal. Critics say copies can pick up a newline and rich text is not supported.
7 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 5
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 71%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 5 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 2.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Powerful terminal clipboard commands
“the terminal commands pbpaste and pbcopy in NeXTstep/Mac OS X as well as Services are so powerful”
Comment from 23 Jul 2026 in “Malleable Computing, Emacs, and You” Native macOS, no extra install
“On MacOS, this is actually solved with the following native clis”
Comment from 1 Mar 2026 in “Obsidian Sync now has a headless client” Pipes command output to clipboard
“Pipes the the result directly into your clipboard”
Comment from 16 Sep 2026 in “Small programming tricks”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Copies can include a newline
“copying a hash or token comes with a new line character”
Comment from 4 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Cpcp – A smarter pbcopy for macOS that strips ANSI and newlines” No rich text on clipboard
“You can't put rich text on the clipboard with pbcopy.”
Comment from 5 Oct 2026 on Hacker News
Other privilege escalation tools people recommend
The four most recommended other privilege escalation tools, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
See all 86 privilege escalation tools, rankedWhat people said
5 of the 7 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“You can't put rich text on the clipboard with pbcopy.”
“Pipes the the result directly into your clipboard”
“the terminal commands pbpaste and pbcopy in NeXTstep/Mac OS X as well as Services are so powerful”
“copying a hash or token comes with a new line character”
“On MacOS, this is actually solved with the following native clis”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.