ClipGrade

A lightweight Windows clipboard manager built with C# + WPF (.NET 9) — an upgrade to the built-in clipboard. It runs quietly in the system tray and pops up a searchable clipboard history right above your text cursor.

Screenshots

Popup over a text field	Theme settings
Shortcut settings	Clipboard history

Features

• Captures text and images copied anywhere in Windows.
• Keeps your recent clipboard entries (images included) — how many is adjustable from 30 to 100 in Settings. Pinned items are kept forever and never count against that limit.
• Right-click any entry for a menu: Paste, Copy, Pin/Unpin, Delete. Pinned items show a small filled pin marker and persist across restarts.
• Hover an entry to preview its full text; hover an image for a larger preview.
• Search box + tabs: All · 📌 Pinned · 🖼 Images.
• Global shortcut opens the popup just above the I-beam in the focused text field (falls back to the mouse position if no caret is found).
• Paste: press Enter or double-click an entry. The popup never steals focus, so it pastes straight into the field you were typing in.
• Esc or clicking away closes the popup.
• Settings window (tray → Settings…) with Shortcut, Theme, and Clipboard tabs — see below.

Running it

From Visual Studio

1. Open ClipboardApp.csproj (File → Open → Project/Solution).
2. Press F5 (or Ctrl+F5 to run without the debugger).

From the command line

dotnet run

The app has no main window — look for its icon in the system tray (bottom-right). Right-click the tray icon for:

• Show clipboard – open the popup
• Settings… – open the settings window
• Clipboard history… – open settings on the Clipboard tab
• Exit

Keyboard / mouse controls (popup)

Action	Key
Open	Your shortcut (default Ctrl+Shift+V), or Win+V if enabled
Move selection	↑ / ↓
Paste selected	Click (single-click by default; Enter also works)
Per-entry options	Right-click (Paste / Copy / Pin / Delete)
Search	Just start typing
Edit / clear search	Backspace, or click the ✕ in the search box
Close	Esc or click outside

Settings

Shortcut

• Click the shortcut box, press a key combination (e.g. Ctrl+Shift+V), then Save. If the combo can't be registered (already in use, or Win+V which Windows reserves), you get a warning and it resets to no shortcut.
• Clear removes the shortcut (you can still open from the tray).
• Also open with Win+V — uses a keyboard hook to grab Win+V, open this app, and suppress Windows' own clipboard popup. No registry/policy change needed.
• Pause while a fullscreen app (game) is open — temporarily disables the keyboard hooks and shortcut whenever a fullscreen program is in the foreground, then restores them when you leave it (see Anti-cheat below).
• Use double-click to paste — by default a single click pastes an entry; enable this to require a double-click (single click then only selects).

Theme

Pick a theme from the dropdown: built-in Dark and Light, plus any custom themes you create. Built-ins can't be edited — click Add custom theme, give it a name, and you get an editable copy with color pickers for every part of the UI (Background, Row background, Highlight/selected, Accent, Text, Grey text, Icons, Text box/search). Click a swatch (or Pick…) for a color dialog, or type a #RRGGBB value; changes apply instantly and are saved. Delete removes a custom theme, and Import…/Export… load and save themes as .json files.

Clipboard

The full history of everything you've copied, with a search box and All / 📌 Pinned / 🖼 Images tabs. Double-click an item to copy it back to the clipboard (this does not paste and does not close the window). Right-click an item for Copy / Pin / Delete.

A note on Win+V

Windows normally reserves Win+V for its own Clipboard History, and a regular hotkey registration can't take it. The Also open with Win+V option works around this with a low-level keyboard hook that intercepts the combo before Windows sees it (it taps Ctrl internally so releasing Win doesn't open the Start menu). It only works while the app is running.

A note on anti-cheat

This app uses the same techniques as mainstream clipboard managers (Ditto, ClipboardFusion, etc.): global low-level keyboard/mouse hooks and a synthetic Ctrl+V to paste. For everyday use this is fine. For competitive games with kernel-level anti-cheat (Valorant/Vanguard, EasyAntiCheat, BattlEye, FACEIT), enable Pause while a fullscreen app is open, or simply Exit the app from the tray before playing — either removes the hooks entirely.

Where data is stored

%AppData%\ClipGrade\

• entries.json — clipboard entry metadata (text + pin state)
• settings.json — your shortcut + theme + options
• images\*.png — captured images

Deleting that folder resets the app.

Build a standalone .exe

dotnet publish -c Release -r win-x64 --self-contained false -p:PublishSingleFile=true

The single-file ClipGrade.exe lands in bin\Release\net9.0-windows\win-x64\publish\.

Start automatically with Windows

Right-click the tray icon and toggle Start on boot. This adds/removes a per-user entry under HKCU\…\CurrentVersion\Run pointing at the current executable — no admin rights needed. (If you move or re-publish the .exe to a new location, toggle it off and on again so the path updates.)

Project layout

File	Purpose
App.xaml(.cs)	App entry point, theme resources, system-tray icon.
MainWindow.xaml(.cs)	The popup UI + clipboard/hotkey/hook handling.
SettingsWindow.xaml(.cs)	Shortcut / Theme / Clipboard settings window.
Models/ClipboardEntry.cs	One clipboard item (text or image).
Models/Settings.cs	Hotkey, theme, and option settings.
Services/ClipboardStore.cs	Shared entry list: capture, trim, persistence, clipboard I/O.
Services/Storage.cs	Reads/writes entries.json and image files.
Services/SettingsStore.cs	Reads/writes settings.json.
Services/ThemeManager.cs	Applies theme colors to app resources (live).
Services/HookManager.cs	Low-level keyboard/mouse hooks.
Services/NativeMethods.cs	Win32 P/Invoke declarations.
Services/InputHelper.cs	Caret-position lookup + paste simulation.