I don’t remember the first time I found this tip, but the other day I was trying to find the exact syntax and couldn’t, hence this post.

Option 1

To copy to clipboard from vim using visual selection, select the thing you want (v or shift + v), then press :, it will open the command mode box (forgot what’s called) with :'<,'> prepopulated. Then just append :w !pbcopy

ie.

1

:'<,'>:w !pbcopy

The :w bit writes to a file.

The !pbcopy bit (not quite sure) means that instead of writing to a file pbcopy, to evaluate it as a command.

Since I’ve been using a mac, pbcopy is already available. For linux you can alias it to xclip -selection clipboard -in.

The downside is that it copies the entire line, which is kinda annoying.

Option 2 (better)

On Mac and Windows we can write to the * register which is the system one.

So select as normal, then press "*y.

I think for linux it’s the + register.