Paste and clipboard

hyprwhspr copies dictated text to the clipboard, sends a paste shortcut, then restores your clipboard. Wayland prefers wl-clipboard plus wtype (falling back to ydotool key). X11 uses python-pyperclip with xclip, and xdotool/xprop for focused-window and terminal detection. xsel is also accepted as a clipboard fallback when installed. Most setups need no configuration. GNOME/Mutter and KDE Plasma need the AT-SPI bridge for window detection — see GNOME and KDE.

Paste mode

The paste shortcut is auto-detected from the focused window:

• Terminals (Ghostty, Kitty, WezTerm, Alacritty, foot, …) → Ctrl+Shift+V
• Everything else (editors, browsers, chat apps) → Ctrl+V

Override with paste_mode if needed:

{
    "paste_mode": "ctrl_shift"  // "ctrl_shift" (terminal paste) | "ctrl" (GUI paste) | "super" | "alt"
}

The default is null, which auto-detects the appropriate paste chord from the focused application. The legacy shift_paste setting also accepts null for the same auto-detection behavior.

App-specific paste keys

Some apps use non-standard paste shortcuts — GUI Emacs, for example, uses Ctrl+Y while Ctrl+V scrolls. Set per-app behavior with applications, keyed by window identifier:

{
    "applications": {
        "emacs": { "auto_paste": "ctrl+y" },  // custom paste chord
        "some-app": { "auto_paste": false }    // disable: nothing pasted, clipboard untouched
    }
}

Run hyprwhspr config focused-window to see the identifiers for the active window. Run straight from a terminal it just reports the terminal, so add a delay and focus the target window before it fires — the output still lands in your terminal:

sleep 3; hyprwhspr config focused-window   # then click into the app you want

Prefer stable app classes over window titles, which change with the open document.

not detected means no identifier is available, so applications rules can’t match — the command says why and what to do about it.

Terminal Emacs (emacs -nw, emacsclient -t): hyprwhspr sees the terminal, not Emacs, so terminal paste (Ctrl+Shift+V) is normally correct.

Non-QWERTY layouts

ydotool sends physical Linux keycodes, so Ctrl+KEY_V may not be Ctrl+v on layouts like bepo or dvorak. To fix on Wayland: run wev, press the key that types v, and copy the printed keycode into paste_keycode_wev:

{
    "paste_keycode_wev": 55 // `wev` keycode for the key that types 'v' on your layout
}

If you already know the Linux evdev keycode, set paste_keycode directly. Non-Latin layouts (Thai, Russian, Arabic, …) are a special case handled on GNOME/Mutter — see GNOME and KDE.

Remapped modifier keys

ydotool sends physical keycodes, so desktop-level remaps can change the generated paste shortcut. For example, with Ctrl and Caps Lock swapped:

{
    "ydotool_modifier_overrides": {
        "ctrl": "capslock"
    }
}

Supported modifiers are ctrl, shift, alt, and super. Key names are case-insensitive and may include the KEY_ prefix; Linux evdev keycodes are also accepted. The usual control, meta, cmd, and logo aliases work here as they do in paste chords. This setting affects only the ydotool fallback.

Auto-submit

Automatically press Enter after pasting — aka Dictation YOLO. Handy for chat boxes and search fields; careful elsewhere.

{
    "auto_submit": true   // Send Enter key after paste (default: false)
}

Clipboard behavior

clipboard_settle_delay controls the wait between a successful clipboard copy and the paste shortcut (default 0.15 seconds). It accepts finite nonnegative numbers; 0 skips the wait. Lower values are an advanced compatibility tradeoff: some applications may paste stale clipboard contents. Direct typing is unaffected.

hyprwhspr saves your clipboard before injection and restores it afterward — dictated text never permanently overwrites it. To instead clear the clipboard a few seconds after pasting:

{
    "clipboard_behavior": true,         // true = clear clipboard after a delay (default: false = restore previous contents)
    "clipboard_clear_delay": 5.0        // seconds to wait before clearing (only when clipboard_behavior is true)
}

Recover the last dictation

The daemon keeps the last prepared dictation in memory — text only, no audio or disk history — so you can recover it when a paste does not land.

hyprwhspr record copy-last   # Copy to clipboard for manual paste
hyprwhspr record paste-last  # Deliver to the currently focused application
hyprwhspr record clear-last  # Forget the retained text

Bind these through your compositor so the destination keeps focus — in Hyprland, bind = SUPER ALT, V, exec, hyprwhspr record paste-last. Recovery reuses the exact prepared text without rerunning hooks, and never sends the auto-submit Enter. Continuous mode retains the latest segment, not the whole session. Dictation into an app with injection disabled is never retained.