Free copy-on-select for Windows. Selected text is copied to the clipboard as soon as you release the mouse button.

Download Copyless-Setup.exe  ·  Usage  ·  Website

Copyless brings the X11 primary selection workflow to Windows: select text in any application and it is ready to paste with Ctrl+V, without pressing Ctrl+C. Text that cannot be selected, such as text in games, images and video, can be copied with the built-in Windows OCR engine.

Contents

• Features
• Requirements
• Installation
• Usage
• Configuration
• Command-line options
• How it works
• Known limitations
• Building from source
• Uninstalling
• Privacy

Features

• Copies text selected with the mouse in any application: drag, double-click, triple-click and Shift+click.
• Copies keyboard selections (Shift+arrow keys, Shift+Home/End, Ctrl+A) when the modifier key is released.
• Copies text from any area of the screen using Windows OCR, including games, images, video and remote sessions.
• Smart paste: pressing Ctrl+V right after a selection replaces the selection with the previous clipboard contents.
• Optional middle-click paste.
• Works in terminals and in applications running as administrator.
• Per-application exclusions. Graphics editors are excluded by default so that dragging still draws.
• Keeps rich formatting when copying from browsers and office applications.
• Updates itself from the project's releases. Automatic updates can be turned off.
• Runs silently in the notification area. No telemetry and no runtime dependencies beyond Windows.

Requirements

• Windows 10 version 1809 or later, or Windows 11
• .NET Framework 4.8 (included with Windows 10 version 1903 and later)
• Administrator rights to install
• For OCR: at least one Windows display language with OCR support (installed with most languages)

Installation

1. Download Copyless-Setup.exe from the latest release.
2. Run it and select Yes when asked to install.
3. Approve the User Account Control prompt.

Copyless starts immediately and on every logon. The installer is not code-signed, so Windows SmartScreen may show a warning on first run; select More info, then Run anyway.

Copyless checks for new releases every 6 hours and installs them automatically. To update manually, choose Check for updates in the tray menu, or run a newer Copyless-Setup.exe over the existing installation. Settings are kept in both cases.

Because the installer is unsigned, it is worth checking that the download is the file that was published. Compare the output with the SHA-256 in the release notes:

Get-FileHash .\Copyless-Setup.exe

Prefer to compile it yourself? See Building from source.

Item	Location
Program	C:\Program Files\Copyless\Copyless.exe
Settings	%APPDATA%\Copyless\settings.ini
Startup	Task Scheduler task Copyless (at logon of the installing user)
Shortcut	Start menu
Uninstall entry	Settings > Apps

The startup task runs with highest privileges so that Copyless can read selections in elevated windows and in games started as administrator. Windows does not allow a standard process to do this.

Usage

Action	Result
Drag over text	The selection is copied
Double-click or triple-click	The word or line is copied
Shift+click	The extended selection is copied
Shift+arrow keys, Shift+Home/End	The selection is copied when Shift is released
Ctrl+A	Everything is copied when Ctrl is released
Hold Ctrl+Alt and drag a rectangle	Text inside the rectangle is recognized and copied
Ctrl+Alt+O	Freezes the screen so a rectangle can be drawn for OCR
Select text, then press Ctrl+V immediately	The selection is replaced with the previous clipboard
Ctrl+Alt+C, or click the tray icon	Pauses or resumes Copyless

Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V keep working as usual. The mouse click used for Ctrl+Alt+drag is not passed to the application underneath, so it does not trigger actions in games.

Right-click the tray icon for options, OCR language selection and per-application exclusions.

Configuration

Most options are available from the tray menu. All settings are stored in %APPDATA%\Copyless\settings.ini and are reloaded when the tray menu is opened.

Key	Default	Description
Enabled	True	Copy selections automatically
KeyboardSelection	True	Copy Shift+arrow key selections
CopyOnCtrlA	True	Copy after Ctrl+A
SmartPaste	True	Ctrl+V right after a selection pastes the previous clipboard
MiddleClickPaste	False	Middle-click over a text field pastes
AccessibilityFallback	True	Read selections through UI Automation when Ctrl+C is not used
ToggleHotkey	Ctrl+Alt+C	Pause and resume
OcrHotkey	Ctrl+Alt+O	Frozen-screen OCR
OcrDragModifiers	Ctrl+Alt	Modifiers for live OCR drag, or None to disable
OcrLanguage	auto	auto or a language tag such as en-US
MinDragPixels	6	Minimum mouse movement that counts as a selection
Exclude	see file	Process names (without .exe) where nothing is copied
ForceCtrlC	see file	Process names that use a custom I-beam cursor
AutoUpdate	True	Check for new releases every 6 hours and install them
DebugLog	False	Write diagnostic messages to %APPDATA%\Copyless\log.txt

Command-line options

Copyless.exe --install [--quiet]      Install or update, and start at logon for the current user
Copyless.exe --uninstall [--quiet]    Remove the program, startup task and shortcuts
Copyless.exe --quit                   Close the running instance
Copyless.exe --ocr <image> <output>   Recognize text in an image file and write it to a file

How it works

Copyless installs low-level mouse and keyboard hooks and detects selection gestures. When a gesture ends over an I-beam cursor, Copyless sends Ctrl+C to the foreground window and confirms the copy through the clipboard sequence number, which preserves the formatting the application puts on the clipboard. When no I-beam cursor is shown, when the window is a terminal, or when Ctrl+C has no effect, the selection is read through Microsoft UI Automation instead. Terminals never receive Ctrl+C, so running programs are not interrupted.

OCR captures the selected screen area, scales it up for small text, and passes it to Windows.Media.Ocr. When more than one recognition language is installed, the result whose script best matches the text is used.

Updates are checked 45 seconds after start and every 6 hours through the GitHub releases API. A newer installer is downloaded, verified against the size and SHA-256 published with the release and against its file version, and then run silently. It closes the running instance, replaces the program and starts it again.

Known limitations

• Games running in exclusive fullscreen mode cannot be captured for OCR. Use borderless or windowed mode.
• Password fields are never copied. Windows blocks copying from them.
• Every selection replaces the clipboard. Windows clipboard history (Win+V) can be used to recover earlier items.
• Chromium-based browsers enable their accessibility tree when queried through UI Automation, which slightly increases their memory use.
• OCR accuracy depends on the installed Windows language packs.

Building from source

The project builds with the C# compiler included in the .NET Framework, so no SDK or Visual Studio installation is needed.

Run the build script from the project folder:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File build.ps1

The script produces dist\Copyless.exe, which is the same program the release ships as Copyless-Setup.exe. Run it and select Yes when asked to install, as in Installation.

File	Purpose
src\InputWatcher.cs	Mouse and keyboard hooks, gesture detection
src\CopyEngine.cs	Copy strategy, smart paste
src\Uia.cs	Selection reading through UI Automation
src\Ocr.cs	Screen capture and text recognition
src\TrayApp.cs	Tray icon, menu and hotkeys
src\Ui.cs	Icon drawing, overlays and the region picker
src\Program.cs	Entry point, installer and startup task
src\Settings.cs	Settings file
src\Native.cs	Win32 interop
src\Updater.cs	Update check, download and verification
assets\	Logo images; symbol.png is embedded as the app icon

Uninstalling

Open Settings > Apps, select Copyless and choose Uninstall, or run:

& "C:\Program Files\Copyless\Copyless.exe" --uninstall

Settings in %APPDATA%\Copyless are kept and can be deleted manually.

Privacy

Copyless does not record keystrokes or clipboard contents. Selected text is only placed on the Windows clipboard. The only network access is the update check, which requests the latest release information from GitHub. The request identifies only the Copyless version. It can be turned off with Update automatically in the tray menu. OCR runs locally through Windows. The optional debug log records application names and gesture types, never text.