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Clipboard: readText() method

files/en-us/web/api/clipboard/readtext/index.md

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{{APIRef("Clipboard API")}} {{securecontext_header}}

The readText() method of the {{domxref("Clipboard")}} interface returns a {{jsxref("Promise")}} which fulfills with a copy of the textual contents of the system clipboard.

[!NOTE] To read non-text contents from the clipboard, use the {{domxref("Clipboard.read", "read()")}} method instead. You can write text to the clipboard using {{domxref("Clipboard.writeText", "writeText()")}}.

Syntax

js-nolint
readText()

Parameters

None.

Return value

A {{jsxref("Promise")}} that resolves with a string containing the textual contents of the clipboard.

Returns an empty string if the clipboard is empty, does not contain text, or does not include a textual representation among the objects representing the clipboard's contents.

Exceptions

  • NotAllowedError {{domxref("DOMException")}}
    • : Thrown if the access to read the clipboard is not allowed.
  • NotFoundError {{domxref("DOMException")}}
    • : Thrown if the clipboard indicates that it contains data that can be represented as a text but is unable to provide a textual representation.

Security considerations

Reading from the clipboard can only be done in a secure context.

Additional security requirements are covered in the Security consideration section of the API overview topic.

Examples

This example retrieves the textual contents of the clipboard and inserts the returned text into a selected element's contents.

js
const destination = document.getElementById("outbox");
destinationImage.addEventListener("click", () => {
  navigator.clipboard
    .readText()
    .then((clipText) => (destination.innerText = clipText));
});

Specifications

{{Specifications}}

Browser compatibility

{{Compat}}

See also