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Has anyone explained what kind of System/Settings attribute needs to change to make Cmd+C work as expected? -- which would be:

  1. press Cmd+C combo-key
  2. highlight-select string to copy
  3. press Cmd+V to paste copied item at the cursor position

Is there some terminal command that forces Cmd+C to copy selected text the first time so that then Cmd+V pastes the selected text? I've been a Mac user since 1986 and having to perform Cmd+C twice is illogical.

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    You need to select first and then copy. From documentation: “Command-C: Copy the selected item to the Clipboard. This also works for files in the Finder.”. If nothing selected then nothing is copied.
    – Aivar Paalberg
    Commented Aug 3 at 4:14
  • Does this happen in all applications you are using? Does it happen also if you use another keyboard?
    – nohillside ♦
    Commented Aug 3 at 4:34
  • MacOS has always copied the selected text to the Pasteboard using Command C. You should not need to press it twice. If you Paste when text is selected, that text will be replaced. It has been like that at least since 1986. Are you saying that this is not how it behaves for you?
    – benwiggy
    Commented Aug 3 at 11:16
  • You need to swap the order of steps 1 and 2.
    – Barmar
    Commented Aug 3 at 17:48
  • SteveM added a post some weeks ago explaining the process for copying text. Could you check it out? If it helps, it'd be great if you could mark it as the accepted answer to help others with a similar issue.
    – jaume
    Commented Sep 8 at 14:07

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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For macOS, the steps are out of order. You must first select the text to copy (your step 2) then click Cmd+C (your step 1). Thus the correct process is:

  1. select the item to copy
  2. press Cmd+C to copy the selected item
  3. press Cmd+V to paste the copied item at the cursor position

This is the expected behavior in macOS.

Thus we see why you need to press Cmd+C twice. The first time, it copies 'nothing' as nothing was selected to copy. The second time the selected text is copied.

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    For macOS, Windows, Linux, Solaris, Xerox Alto, Arthur, AmigaOS, and just about every other OS with a mouse and pointer interface, the steps are out of order.
    – benwiggy
    Commented Aug 4 at 13:12
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    Yeah, I phrased it that way as I wasn't sure if there was some OS (or text editor) which did it differently. Cheers.
    – SteveM
    Commented Aug 4 at 15:48

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