Clipboard conflict in Cursor: system copy/paste (Cmd+C / Cmd+V) and Vim yank/paste (y / p) overwrite each other

[JimWeng (振輝 翁)]

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

When using the Vim extension in Cursor, the system clipboard and Vim’s yank register overwrite each other. Content copied with Cmd+C is replaced by Vim’s y (yank), and vice versa, so they don’t stay separate. This does not happen in VS Code with the same Vim extension.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Open a file in Cursor IDE with the Vim extension enabled.
2. Select some text and press Cmd+C to copy it to the system clipboard.
3. In Vim mode, use yy to yank the current line (into Vim’s register).
4. Press Cmd+V to paste (system paste).

The pasted content is what was yanked with yy, not what was copied with Cmd+C.

Expected Behavior

• Cmd+C and Cmd+V should use the system clipboard only.
• Vim yy (yank) and Vim p (paste) should use Vim’s register only.
• These two should be independent: Cmd+V should always paste the last Cmd+C content; Vim p should always paste the last Vim yank. They should not overwrite each other.

Operating System

MacOS

Version Information

Version: 2.5.25 (Universal)
VSCode Version: 1.105.1
Commit: 7150844152b426ed50d2b68dd6b33b5c5beb73c0
Date: 2026-02-24T07:17:49.417Z
Build Type: Stable
Release Track: Default
Electron: 39.4.0
Chromium: 142.0.7444.265
Node.js: 22.22.0
V8: 14.2.231.22-electron.0
OS: Darwin arm64 25.2.0

Additional Information

Cursor: 2.5.25
Vim extension: vscodevim.vim 1.32.4
OS: macOS (darwin)

Does this stop you from using Cursor

No - Cursor works, but with this issue

[deanrie]

Hey, thanks for the detailed report.

This is most likely controlled by the vscodevim setting vim.useSystemClipboard. When it’s set to true (and sometimes by default), yank and delete operations sync to the system clipboard, which causes the overlap you’re seeing.

A couple of things to check in your settings.json:

1. Make sure vim.useSystemClipboard is set to false. This keeps Vim’s registers separate from the system clipboard:

"vim.useSystemClipboard": false

2. You can also tell vscodevim to let Cursor handle Cmd+C and Cmd+V natively via vim.handleKeys:

"vim.handleKeys": {
    "<D-c>": false,
    "<D-v>": false
}

Could you also check whether your Cursor and VS Code settings.json files have the same Vim-related configuration? They might be different, which would explain why the behavior differs between the two editors.

If the settings are identical in both and you still see the difference, let me know and we can dig into it.