Copy to and paste from clipboard. Especially useful for very large files or when you use SSH with no GUI.

See StackOverflow answer for usage and shortcuts.

Linux

Use xclip - see man page.

xclip [OPTION] [FILE]…

Description

Reads from standard in, or from one or more files, and makes the data available as an X selection for pasting into X applications. Prints current X selection to standard out.

Read

Store value in X selection.

Command output.

$ COMMAND | xclip

Read file.

$ xclip PATH

This lets you paste using the middle mouse button.

If you prefer to traditional pasting:

$ xclip -sel clip PATH

Or according to the manpage:

-selection

specify which X selection to use, options are “primary” to use XA_PRIMARY (default), “secondary” for XA_SECONDARY or “clipboard” for XA_CLIPBOARD

Output

Print.

$ xclip

Pipe.

-o, -out

prints the selection to standard out (generally for piping to a file or program)

$ xclip -o > PATH

macOS

Use pbcopy and pbpaste.

Read

Copy file.

$ pbcopy < PATH

Output

Print.

$ pbpaste

Pipe.

$ pbpaste | head