Smart Clipboard

A temporary working tray that keeps your last 8 clipboard copies — text, files, folders, and images — ready to paste or drag into any destination.

Every time you copy something on your computer, Smart Clipboard captures it automatically and adds it to a stack. The most recent item sits at the top. When the stack reaches 8 items, the oldest one drops off. Click any item to put it back on the system clipboard, or drag it directly where you need it.

Smart Clipboard is global — it works across all projects and persists between sessions.

Where you'll find it

Smart Clipboard appears in three places:

  • Project Navigator sidebar — a collapsible section at the top of the folder tree. Drop files or text onto it to add items. Click any item to paste.
  • Global overlay (Win+Shift+V) — a popup that appears at your cursor showing the full stack. Click an item to paste it and dismiss the overlay.
  • Power Strip sidecar panel — open the Smart Clipboard as a side panel from the Power Strip for quick access.

What it captures

Smart Clipboard recognizes four types of content:

  • Text — copied text from any application. ThinkForge generates a display name from the content so you can identify clips at a glance.
  • Files — copied files from Explorer, the Project Navigator, or other file managers.
  • Folders — copied folder references, including multi-file selections from Explorer.
  • Images — screenshots and copied images are saved to disk and referenced by path. Duplicate images are detected automatically so the same screenshot does not appear twice.

Auto-capture

On Windows, Smart Clipboard monitors the system clipboard in the background. Whenever you copy something — whether from a browser, code editor, file manager, or any other application — it appears in the stack automatically. No manual action required.

The monitor recognizes file drops, images (PNG and bitmap), and text. If you copy multiple files at once in Explorer, each file is captured as its own entry.

Smart Clipboard skips self-triggered copies (when you paste from the stack back to the clipboard) to avoid circular captures.

Windows only. Auto-capture requires Windows clipboard APIs. On other platforms, you can still add items manually through the context menu, drag-and-drop, or the Power Strip.

Adding items manually

Beyond auto-capture, you can add items to the stack in several ways:

  • Right-click → Add to Smart Clipboard — available on files, folders, pinned items, and recent documents in the Project Navigator
  • Drag and drop — drag files, folders, or selected text onto the Smart Clipboard section in the navigator sidebar
  • Hover action — in Modern view mode, a clipboard icon appears on file rows for one-click capture

When you add an item manually, it is also copied to the system clipboard so you can immediately Ctrl+V it.

Pasting and using items

Click to paste — click any item in the stack (sidebar, overlay, or Power Strip panel) to copy it to the system clipboard. Then use Ctrl+V in any application.

Drag out — drag items from the stack directly to a folder in the navigator, to another application, or to the Floating Explorer. Text items create a temporary file when dragged.

Right-click menu — each item has a context menu with additional actions:

  • Open (files and images) or Open as Note (saves text to a Markdown file in your project)
  • Copy to System Clipboard
  • Reveal in Explorer or Copy Path (for physical files)
  • Save to the currently selected folder
  • Remove from the stack

Paste submenu on folders — when you right-click a folder in the navigator, a Smart Clipboard submenu lists all stack items. Select one to paste it into that folder.

The global overlay

Press Win+Shift+V to open the Smart Clipboard overlay at your cursor position. It shows the full stack in a compact popup window that stays on top of all other windows.

  • Click an item to paste it to the clipboard and dismiss the overlay
  • Remove individual items with the close button on each row
  • Press Escape or click away to dismiss without pasting

The overlay works from any application — you do not need ThinkForge to be in the foreground.

Windows only. The global hotkey overlay requires Windows APIs and is not available on other platforms.

How it differs from project storage

Smart Clipboard is a temporary transfer tool, not a filing system. It holds up to 8 items, the oldest drops off automatically, and it is not tied to any project. For permanent organization, use pinned items, shortcuts, or workspaces in the Project Navigator.

Two related Power Strip commands work differently:

  • Save Clipboard — saves the current OS clipboard text as a document in your project's capture folder. This is a one-time save, not a stack operation.
  • Create Doc From Clipboard — same as above, but also opens the saved file in the editor.

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