Paste text on Android using ADB?

Question

This might seem like a duplicate question, but hear me out.

I basically need to press "CTRL+V" inside of Android. I need to paste the current Android clipboard into the focused TextBox.

So this:

adb shell input text [text]

won't do, as it requires me to enter the text myself. I just need to paste the current clipboard.

Is that possible through ABD? I googled and googled and all I found was ways to set clipboard content and not actually just press the paste button.

for the sake to ease development

@adelphus the clipboard on the device. As you would just "CTRL+V" on windows, I just need to "CTRL+V" on Android if you know what I mean. — Dysanix Official, May 11 '16 at 21:46
Not directly through adb. If you have root, you could create a background system service that responds to an intent, and upon receiving the intent, inject a key sequence equivalent to paste (Ctrl + V). — Cookster, May 11 '16 at 21:50
Since pasting is normally a hold and tap operation on the EditText, could you simulate taps in the appropriate positions - like in http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3437686/how-to-use-adb-to-send-touch-events-to-device-using-sendevent-command — adelphus, May 11 '16 at 21:51

score 18 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 25 '18 at 05:56

18

Since API 24, KEYCODE_PASTE is available from the KeyEvent class, its constant is 279.

The adb command would be as follows:

adb shell input keyevent 279

edited Apr 25 '18 at 05:56

Micer

answered Sep 21 '16 at 01:23

Laraconda

No responds why – Saige Zhang Sep 02 '18 at 18:52
This command is great! If you're also looking for a way to SET the clipboard over adb, you can install this app on your device: https://github.com/PRosenb/AdbClipboard. With this app you just need to broadcast a url encoded string and it will get set to the devices clipboard (works with spaces, special characters, emojis, etc). – Calvin Schemanski Dec 20 '19 at 16:28

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered May 13 '16 at 15:01

My solution:

I installed the Tasker plugin.
I made a "scene" with a button.
On the button tap event I added the "Control+V plugin" with the configuration to type %CLIP.
Now I made a profile that direct to a task to show the scene (overlay,blocking).
And last but not least, I use adb shell input tap x y to tap the button.

2 Answers2