this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2026
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How to stop Wayland from broadcasting my selected text? (fedia.io)
submitted 2 days ago by BlueKey@fedia.io to c/linux@programming.dev
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While fixing a problem with a Wayland app I noticed that the programm got a notification from a Wayland fd whenever I selected some text in any other window (not belonging to the app) and was able to read the contents of the selection.

As I'm not a fan of sharing data without explicit actions (so Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V), is there a way to disable this behaviour of Wayland?

OS info: Fedora 43 KDE

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[โ€“] TheV2@programming.dev 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

What is the application and did you notice similar behavior outside of it, e.g. being able to paste the currently selected text? I would also check your clipboard manager's configuration. Clipboards (usually) have a clipboard buffer (for CTRL + C -> CTRL + V) and a primary buffer (for selected text -> mouse middle button paste). Some problems arise from the confusing default settings of some clipboard managers, e.g. the synchronization of both buffers.

[โ€“] BlueKey@fedia.io 2 points 1 day ago

The application was MPV. At random time it started consuming 100% of one core for a long time. I could track it down to the clipboard thread where a loop polls Wayland to get the latest content of the clipboard (selected text). Seems like a bug in some other application spamms this clipboard buffer from time to time and so caused the MPV loop to run continously.

This way I learned about that Wayland API and as MPV can emit logs whenever the poll loop got new data, I was able to see that it fired whenever I selected text in some application.

Good to know the name of this feature; primary buffer. Now I need to find a way to disable it.