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Drag and Drop

Drag clips directly from mahpastes into other applications on your system.

Overview​

mahpastes supports dragging clips out of the app and dropping them into other programs. This works like dragging a file from Finder or Explorer -- the receiving app gets a real file it can open, attach, or process.

Supported drop targets include:

  • Finder / Explorer -- drop to save as a file
  • Mail / Outlook -- drop to attach
  • Slack / Discord -- drop to share
  • Any app that accepts file drops
Folder Mode

Drag handles are hidden when folder mode is active. Switch back to normal gallery view to drag clips out.

How to Drag a Clip​

Each clip card has a grip icon (drag handle) on the left side. The drag handle goes through a preparation sequence:

  1. Hover over the drag handle -- the app first checks whether a temp file already exists from a previous hover. If not, a 1-second arming countdown begins (shown as a circular progress animation).
  2. Preparing -- after the countdown, the app fetches the clip data from the backend and writes a temporary file to disk (shown as a spinner).
  3. Ready -- the handle returns to the grip icon, indicating the clip is ready to drag.
  4. Drag -- click and hold the handle, drag to the target app, release to drop.

If you click the drag handle before it reaches the Ready state, preparation starts immediately. Once a clip has been prepared, subsequent hovers skip the countdown and show the ready state right away (until the temp file's 60-minute lease expires).

What Gets Transferred​

Clip TypeWhat's Dragged
ImagesThe image file (PNG, JPG, etc.)
TextA text file with the content
JSONA .json file
HTMLAn .html file
OtherThe original file

The file keeps its original filename. If the clip was pasted without a filename, mahpastes generates one based on the content type.

Platform Support​

PlatformStatusMechanism
macOSFully supportedNative drag via NSView.dragFile (CGo)
WindowsFully supportedDataTransfer DownloadURL backed by an HTTP transfer handler
LinuxPlannedNot yet implemented

macOS​

On macOS, dragging a clip triggers a native OS drag operation using NSView.dragFile. The app passes a file:// URI pointing to the prepared temp file, so every standard macOS drop target (Finder, Mail, Slack, etc.) receives a real file reference. This is initiated directly from a mouse event for reliable behavior.

Windows​

On Windows, drag-out uses Chromium's DownloadURL DataTransfer type. Because Chromium rejects file:// URIs in DownloadURL with a network error, the app serves the temp file over a local HTTP endpoint (/transfer/{token}/{filename}) with a one-time random token for authorization. The receiving app downloads the file from that URL, producing a standard file drop (CF_HDROP). Multiple DataTransfer types (text/uri-list, DownloadURL, text/plain, etc.) are set for broad compatibility.

Linux​

Linux drag-out is planned for a future release. A placeholder strategy (linux-fileuri-v1) exists in the codebase but is not yet functional.

Temporary Files​

Temp files created for drag-out (and Copy Path / Copy File) are stored in clip_temp_files/ inside the app's data directory. They are:

  • Reused if you drag the same clip again within the lease window
  • Given a 60-minute lease, refreshed each time the file is accessed
  • Pruned every 10 minutes -- stale files (past their lease) and orphaned files (whose clip was deleted) are removed
  • Fully cleaned up when mahpastes exits

You don't need to manage these files manually.

Tips​

  • Drag images directly into email compose windows to attach them
  • Drag text clips into editors to insert the content
  • You cannot drag multiple clips at once -- use Bulk Actions to copy or download several clips together
  • If the drag handle stays in the spinner state for a long time, the clip data may be very large