Installing on Windows

The first release has not been published yet. The download link below lands on an empty releases page until the release pipeline runs against a tag. Everything else on this page — what to expect, how to check it, what breaks — is written against the app as it is built. The browser version needs no install and works now.

Install it

1. Download RealtimeClipboard_<version>_x64_en-US.msi from the releases page, or use the button on the download page, which picks the file for you.
2. Run it. There is no administrator prompt and no options to choose — it installs per machine, registers no service and no driver.
3. The app opens a window and puts an icon in the notification area.

There is also a -setup.exe in the same release. It is an NSIS installer of the identical build; take the .msi unless your deployment tooling wants the other one.

Or from a package manager

winget install AkshayNikhare.RealtimeClipboard

In review. The 0.3.0 manifest is submitted and waiting on Microsoft's reviewers — people who do not work on this project — so there is a gap of days between a release and this command working. Until it merges, use the .msi above; it is the same file winget would fetch, and its SHA256 is pinned in that manifest.

There is deliberately no scoop line. A Scoop bucket is a repository somebody has to keep in step with every release, and one Windows channel that is genuinely maintained beats two that drift apart. The .msi above is the same build either way.

Check it worked

The app is a window around the same page the website serves, so most of what you see is the web app. Two things tell you the native half is running:

• A tray icon. Click it to bring the window back. Quit lives in its menu, on purpose — an app that watches your clipboard has to have a visible way to stop it.
• The status bar reads T0 · watching the system clipboard, bottom right. That string is the whole difference between the desktop app and a browser tab. In a browser the same field reads T3 · auto-capture at best, and T1 · paste only at worst.

Left of it, the connection state reads Connected once the relay has answered. Connecting… that never settles is a network problem, not an install problem — see below.

Your first sync

1. In the app, note the five-character key at the top, or type one of your own.
2. On a second device — a phone browser will do — open the app and enter the same key.
3. Copy something on Windows. Do not switch to RealtimeClipboard: the point is that you do not have to. It appears on the other device.

If it did not appear, check the mode. The desktop app ships set to Manual, because it reads every copy you make while it runs — including passwords you copied for unrelated reasons — and that is a real thing to agree to rather than a default to inherit. Switch it to Live when you want the automatic behaviour.

When it does not work

SmartScreen warns about the installer

Expected on a new publisher, and worth taking seriously in general rather than clicking through by habit. Check that you got the file from the official releases page and that the publisher matches. The warning goes away as the certificate accrues reputation, not because anything about the build changed.

It is a work machine

The app needs no administrator rights and installs no driver or service. It makes outbound connections on 443 to a single hostname, which is the shape IT departments allowlist. If yours blocks it, the browser version needs nothing at all — and if the browser version is blocked too, that is a policy decision and not something to work around.

Windows has its own “Sync across your devices”, and it is greyed out

That is a different feature belonging to Windows, not to this app, and its own set of reasons for being unavailable. That page is here. Nothing about it affects RealtimeClipboard, which does not use it.

Stuck on “Connecting…”

The app opens a WebSocket first and falls back to server-sent events plus POST when that is blocked, so a proxy that forbids upgrades still works — slower. If neither connects, the relay hostname is being blocked outright. You can point the app at your own relay under Settings → Relay; running one is one container.

Uninstalling

Settings → Apps → Installed apps → RealtimeClipboard → Uninstall, or winget uninstall AkshayNikhare.RealtimeClipboard if that is how it arrived.

There is nothing to clean up afterwards. No clipboard content is ever written to disk by either the app or the relay, so an uninstall leaves behind only your settings and clip history, which live in the browser storage of the app itself and go with it.

Ready to install: the download page. Every other platform: the installation guide. Something wrong or out of date here? Open an issue.