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Selective Clipboard Format Read

Category
Miscellaneous
Type
New or changed feature
Status
Proposed (Chrome Proposed)
Intent stage
None

Summary

Enhances the Asynchronous Clipboard API by deferring actual clipboard data retrieval from the OS until the web application calls getType(). Instead of eagerly fetching all available formats at read() time, the browser now returns ClipboardItem objects with available MIME types but without the underlying data, and reads from the OS clipboard only when getType() is invoked. const items = await navigator.clipboard.read(); // No data read yet const text = await items.getType('text/plain'); // Only 'text/plain' data read here This reduces CPU usage, improves the perceived responsiveness of the API call, and optimizes the browser's power consumption.

Motivation

Currently, web applications can read clipboard content through the Async Clipboard API. However, the current implementation eagerly fetches all MIME types from the OS clipboard at read() time, regardless of which formats the application actually needs. This feature defers the actual data retrieval to getType() time, so the browser reads only the requested MIME types from the OS clipboard when they are needed, improving performance and reducing unnecessary data transfer.

Standards & signals

Explainers: https://github.com/MicrosoftEdge/MSEdgeExplainers/blob/main/ClipboardAPI/SelectiveClipboardFormatRead/explainer.md

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