CTRLVC

CTRLVC runs quietly in the background and keeps a local history of everything you copy. Pin the pieces of text you need, tuck the rest away in a Postponed tab, and paste anything back with a single click in whatever window you're working in. The application stores up to 200 text entries, opens the history list next to the cursor with a customizable hotkey, and preserves the standard Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V workflow without interception. Pinned entries are protected from automatic cleanup, postponed entries remain available for later use, and the storage mechanism keeps the local history intact through sudden shutdowns or interrupted disk writes.

★★★★★

5.0(1 ratings)

Download CTRLVC (Official links)

File size: 152 MB

The latest version of CTRLVC is: 1.0.0

Operating system: Windows

Languages: Spanish, English, German, French

Developer: Babkin Vitalii

Price: $0.00 USD

Clipboard monitoring. The program observes the Windows clipboard through the WM_CLIPBOARDUPDATE system notification, which is registered with the AddClipboardFormatListener API. No polling loop is used, so processor load stays minimal and every new text snippet is captured immediately after a standard copy operation in any application.
Global history hotkey. A system-wide combination, Ctrl+Shift+V by default, opens the quick-pick window directly at the current cursor position. The combination is registered through the Win32 RegisterHotKey API and can be changed in the settings panel among several predefined alternatives without restarting the application.
Quick-pick paste. Selecting an entry in the history window pastes its content into the application that was active before the window opened. The history window closes automatically once it loses focus, so the workflow returns to the previous program without additional actions from the operator.
Entry pinning. The pin control moves a text snippet into a protected block of the history. Pinned entries are excluded from automatic cleanup when the 200-entry limit is reached, appear at the top of the Recent copies tab, and can be reordered manually with the up and down arrows inside the pinned block.
Entry postponing. The postpone control hides a copied snippet from the main feed while keeping its content unchanged. Postponed entries are collected in a separate tab, remain there for as long as needed, and return to the main list through the Return command, with the pin state restored automatically if the entry was pinned before postponing.
Entry deletion. Each entry in the list carries its own delete control, which removes the snippet from the history immediately and writes the change to disk. Deletion works from the main feed as well as from the Pinned and Postponed tabs, and no additional confirmation dialog is required.
Duplicate detection. A newly copied snippet is compared against every entry already stored in the history rather than only against the most recent one. Text that already exists in the list is not added a second time, which keeps the history free of repeated fragments after recurring copy operations.
History limit management. The history holds up to 200 entries. When the limit is reached, the oldest entry without a pin is removed first, while pinned entries are never deleted automatically under any circumstances. This rule keeps frequently used phrases, addresses, and code fragments available regardless of how many new copies arrive.
Persistent storage. Copied text, pinned entries, postponed entries, and application settings are kept in plain UTF-8 text files placed next to the executable: history.txt, pinned.txt, postponed.txt, and config.ini. Special characters and line breaks are escaped per line, and the folder can be moved to another drive or computer together with the entire history.
Atomic disk writes. Every change is flushed to disk immediately using a temp file followed by an atomic replace operation. An interrupted write cannot leave a corrupted file behind, and if a single line in the history file is damaged by an external cause, only that entry is skipped during loading while the remaining records read back without errors.
Interface localization. The interface is available in eleven languages, with English as the primary one and additional support for Spanish, German, Chinese, French, Portuguese, Ukrainian, Arabic, Japanese, and Korean. Selecting Arabic switches the layout to a mirrored, right-to-left presentation.
Autostart control. An optional setting adds a single entry to the current user's autostart registry key, so the program can begin collecting copied text right after the system starts. The setting can be turned off at any time from the settings panel, and it remains the only place where the application writes to the registry.
Single instance enforcement. A session-scoped named Mutex prevents a second copy of the process from starting. Launching the executable again while the program is already running does not create an additional instance and does not affect the existing history.
System tray presence. The application sits in the system tray and provides access to the main window, the settings panel, and the exit command. The tray icon can be hidden in the settings if the operator prefers to control the program only through the global hotkey.
Clear history command. A dedicated option removes the entire stored history on demand. The command is available in the settings panel and clears the main feed together with the Pinned and Postponed tabs in a single operation.

CTRLVC was created by developer Babkin Vitalii and has been in development since 2024. The program is written in C# on the .NET 8 platform using Windows Forms for the graphical interface, and it is distributed as a self-contained executable with the runtime bundled in, so no separate .NET installation is required on the target machine. The development focused on a local-first approach: no cloud synchronization, no telemetry, no network requests, and no changes to the operating system beyond an optional autostart entry. Version after version added pinning, postponing, duplicate detection, atomic file writes, interface localization, and a configurable global hotkey, while the core principle remained unchanged: standard copy and paste operations are never intercepted or altered, and the history stays on the local disk in readable text files.