I Got Tired of Hunting Screenshot Paths in Terminals. So I Fixed Ctrl+V.

CodeWarrior4Life — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 22:10:38 +0000

The Idea

The fix seemed obvious: Ctrl+V should be context-aware. If I'm in a terminal and I have an image on my clipboard, I probably want the file path, not the image data. If I'm in a text editor, paste normally. If I'm in a browser, paste normally.

The key insight is that the behavior should be invisible. I didn't want a new command to memorize. I wanted Ctrl+V to just do the right thing depending on where I was.

How It Works

TCP has two layers.

The keyboard layer is an AutoHotkey v2 script that runs in the background as a tray process. It intercepts Ctrl+V at the OS level. When you press it, AHK checks which window is focused. If it's a terminal, it hands off to the Python core. If it's not, it does nothing and lets the normal paste go through.

The Python core handles the logic:

Inspect the clipboard — is there image data?
If yes: check the OS screenshot folder for a file that matches, using a recency window (default: 5 seconds). If the screenshot was captured in the last 5 seconds, it's almost certainly the one you want.
If a match exists: type the full file path into the terminal.
If no match exists: save the clipboard image to disk, then type the path.
If no image in clipboard: fall back to normal paste behavior.

Alt+V is the override: it force-pastes the image path regardless of which window is focused. Useful when you're pasting into a GUI app that isn't a terminal but still needs a path.

Zero Config by Design

I made a deliberate choice to require no setup. TCP works the moment you install it.

Screenshot folder detection is automatic on every platform — Windows registry keys, macOS defaults, and XDG paths on Linux. No config file needed for the common case.

Terminal detection uses a built-in list of process names: WindowsTerminal.exe, powershell.exe, pwsh.exe, cmd.exe, Code.exe, warp.exe, alacritty.exe, mintty.exe. You can add more in %APPDATA%\tcp\config.toml if your terminal isn't covered.

The config file is optional TOML for users who want to customize anything:

save_dir = ""                          # Auto-detected from OS settings
filename_pattern = "tcp_%Y%m%d_%H%M%S.png"
recency_window = 5                     # Seconds
format = "png"
path_style = "native"                  # native, forward, or backslash
extra_terminals = ["hyper.exe"]

Why AutoHotkey

Keyboard interception at the OS level on Windows comes down to a few options: raw Win32 hooks in C/C++, PowerShell with P/Invoke, or AHK. I chose AHK because it's mature, well-understood in the Windows power-user community, and the v2 API is clean. The shim is about 50 lines. It does one thing: intercept hotkeys and shell out to Python.

The Python core is where the logic lives. That also means it's cross-platform — the core already works on macOS and Linux. The missing piece for those platforms is just the hotkey interception layer (Swift/Hammerspoon for macOS, xdotool for Linux). That's on the roadmap.

What I Learned

The hardest part wasn't the clipboard logic or the file matching — it was getting the AHK keystroke injection right. When TCP types a file path into a terminal, it uses AHK's Send function. Early versions had a bug where modifier keys (Ctrl, Shift) from the intercepted hotkey would "leak" into the sent keystrokes, garbling the output. The fix was using {Raw} and {Blind} mode in AHK to ensure the send is clean.

The second tricky part was the clipboard-swap approach for Ctrl+V passthrough. When TCP determines the paste should be a normal text paste, it needs to let the keypress go through as-is. Getting that right without synthetic keystrokes or double-fires took a few iterations.

What's Next

macOS support (the Swift hotkey shim is the main missing piece)
Linux support (xdotool-based shim)
Optional path quoting for paths with spaces
Watcher mode — detect new screenshots in real time and pre-cache the path so the first Ctrl+V is instant even if the file write is slow

Try It

TCP is free. BSL 1.1 — free for all use.

One-click installer: TCPSetup.exe

PowerShell one-liner:

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CodeWarrior4Life/TerminalCopyPaste/main/install.ps1 | iex

Repo: https://github.com/CodeWarrior4Life/TerminalCopyPaste

If you use Claude Code, Codex CLI, Aider, or any terminal-heavy workflow, give it a try.

If you found this useful, consider buying me a coffee to keep the ideas flowing. ☕ It's the kind of tool that becomes invisible after a day — which is exactly what I was going for.

DEV Community: CodeWarrior4Life