Terminal mouse-selection copy is corrupted by the scrollbar column (cannot cleanly copy output)
- Dominant language
- Shell
- Stars
- 11.2k
- Forks
- 1.9k
- Avg merge
- 14h 16m
- Merged PRs (30d)
- 6
Description
### Describe the bug
The conversation scrollbar renders a `┃` (U+2503) glyph in the rightmost column of the timeline. When I select a response with the mouse to copy it to the system clipboard, the selection includes that column — so **every copied line ends with padding spaces and a trailing `┃`**. This makes it effectively impossible to copy clean output (code, commands, paths) out of the CLI.
This regressed with the introduction of the always-on scrollbar; copying worked fine for months before that.
> Note: this is distinct from #3501, which is about the scrollbar causing line **misalignment / reflow**. This report is specifically about the **copy/paste UX** — the pasted output is unusable.
### Affected version
`1.0.65` – `1.0.68`
### Steps to reproduce the behavior
1. Run any prompt that produces multi-line output.
2. Drag-select the response with the mouse and copy to the system clipboard (not `/copy`).
3. Paste into any editor.
4. Every line has trailing spaces + a `┃` character appended.
### Expected behavior
Selecting and copying output should yield clean text, with no scrollbar glyph or padding appended to each line — as it did before the scrollbar was added.
### Additional context
- **Workaround:** `/settings scrollbar off` (or `"scrollbar": false` in `~/.copilot/settings.json`) removes the track and fixes copying. But the default is on, so this affects everyone by default.
- `/copy` only helps for the latest response, not arbitrary or earlier output.
- OS: macOS 26.3.1, aarch64
- Shell: zsh, running in the integrated terminal of IntelliJ IDEA 2026.1 and Android Studio Panda 2 (2025.3.2)
Contributor guide
Research direction
Start by reproducing mouse selection with the scrollbar enabled, then compare clipboard output with the scrollbar disabled. Trace the terminal selection and scrollbar rendering paths; the fix is done when selecting arbitrary multi-line output produces clean text without padding or the scrollbar glyph, while the scrollbar remains usable.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- shell
- Domain
- cli
- Issue type
- Bug
- Difficulty
- 3/5
- Estimated time
- 1-2 days
- Activity status
- Quiet
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 57/100