Interaction between RStudio and Alfred's clipboard management

[aidanfindlater]

I finally discovered why I can't copy and paste in RStudio: there's an interaction with Alfred's clipboard manager. I was noticing that every time I copy something from RStudio, it gets appended to the last thing I copied. Alfred has a feature where double-tapping C when you copy using Cmd-C appends the next selection to the most recent item in the clipboard. Disabling this feature resolves the problem. I guess RStudio must be sending a double-tapped C when copying.

I had eventually found the solution to my problem in an old post from 2014: https://support.rstudio.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/200679798--Mac-OS-Mavericks-Copy-and-Paste-Text-is-Appended-to-Clipboard

I just wanted others to find this solution more easily, and to make people aware that this is still a problem.

[jcblum]

Hi @aidanfindlater! Welcome!

Thanks for posting this — that does sound like a confusing interaction to track down and I think having a post here will definitely will help others find an answer .

In case it's helpful to anyone in the future, I can reproduce this problem on:

• RStudio Edition: Desktop
• RStudio Version: 1.2.1335
• OS Version: macOS High Sierra 10.13.6
• R Version: 3.6.0 (2019-04-26)
• Alfred Version: 4.0.3 [1092]

(And wow is it annoying! )

But I could not reproduce it on RStudio Cloud:

• RStudio Edition: Server Pro
• RStudio Version: 1.2.1335.1
• Running via Firefox 68.0.1 on the same Mac as above

I didn't see any issues in the Github tracker about this weird interaction. If you want to consider filing one, here's your starting point: RStudio IDE Guide: Writing Good Bug Reports