As a PowerShell blogger, I’ll often write a command in the PowerShell ConsoleHost and then, after it’s been executed, want to copy it out and paste it into a post. What this typically means is that I’ll press the up arrow to recall the last command — the one I want — and then selectively highlight the code I want and right-click to copy. Inevitably, I’ll end up copying my prompt and other unwanted lines, or parts of lines, and have to clean that up once it’s been pasted elsewhere.

Well, with a quick minute, those days are over. Type the function name Copy-LastCommand (once the function is in your PowerShell session), press Enter, and boom, the last command you entered is on the clipboard and ready to go elsewhere. Simple. Now all I do, is paste it where I want it and save myself some seconds. They add up.

Function Copy-LastCommand {
    (Get-History (Get-History | Select-Object -Last 1).Id).CommandLine | clip
}

Update: I made some changes to this little function and need to share those. Something I didn’t consider right away, was what happens if there isn’t a last command to copy? This is to say, what if the Copy-LastCommand is the first command entered into someone’s PowerShell session? Well, it won’t have anything to copy. I’ve added a fix for those times — a simple Write-Warning command. I also edited this to work using the newer, Set-Clipboard, cmdlet that was introduced in PowerShell 5.1 (I believe).

Function Copy-LastCommand {
    If (Get-History) {
        If ($PSVersionTable.PSVersion.ToString() -match '5.1') {
            Set-Clipboard -Value (Get-History (Get-History | Select-Object -Last 1).Id -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue).CommandLine
        } Else {
            (Get-History (Get-History | Select-Object -Last 1).Id).CommandLine | clip
        }
    } Else {
        Write-Warning -Message 'No command history to copy.'
    }
}