Unity – How to copy a string to Clipboard

28th December 2019

In Unity there is a cross-platform way to copy a string to Clipboard. Using the TextEditor class I’m going to show you how to copy a string into the user’s Clipboard. This should work in Unity 2017 and beyond.

By using the GUIUtility class, from UnityEngine, we can fit any C# object with a ToString() function into the Clipboard!

Clipboard Extension

To make it easily accessible I made the function as a string extension. By doing it this way we can use the function on any string anywhere in the code.

using UnityEngine;

public static class ClipboardExtension
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Puts the string into the Clipboard.
    /// </summary>
    public static void CopyToClipboard(this string str)
    {
        GUIUtility.systemCopyBuffer = str;
    }
}

Example

Here is an example on how to copy different elements into the Clipboard using the ClipboardExtension:

public string GetSomeString()
{
    return "This is a string coming from a function!";
}

public void TestCopyToClipboard()
{
    // + Using a standard string
    string testString = "Am I in the Clipboard?";
    testString.CopyToClipboard();
    // The content of test1 is in the Clipboard now!

    // + Using a method to get a string
    GetSomeString().CopyToClipboard();
    // The content returned by GetSomeString() is in the Clipboard now!

    // + Using a C# object with a ToString() method
    Color colorTest = Color.red;
    colorTest.ToString().CopyToClipboard();
    // The string version of the object colorTest is in the clipboard now!
}

You can try out this code for yourself! Run it, then try pasting your Clipboard into a notepad. It has been tested and works on PC, WebGL, Android and iOS!

Hello!
FIrst of all, thank you very much for the post!

Though I am using it and it is not working.
It copies the text inside Unity but using WebGL in a browser is not working.
I have also tried with this other plugin and nothing neither. https://github.com/sanukin39/UniClipboard

Do you know further information?
Thank you so much!