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  • Published 8 Aug 2025

Cross-File Node Copy-Paste with Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V

I’d love to be able to select one or more nodes in a Blender file, press Ctrl+C, then switch to another open Blender file and paste them with Ctrl+V—just like we can with colors or text.

Use Case: I’m currently learning shader node techniques by analyzing other people's materials. I often have two Blender files open: one with the reference shader, and one where I try to recreate it manually.

At times, I come across complex nodes—like a finely tuned Color Ramp—and wish I could simply copy it from the reference file and paste it into my working file. Unfortunately, that's not currently possible.

My only workarounds are:

  • Manually recreating the node (which is time-consuming for detailed configurations).
  • Creating a node group in the source file and then appending it into my file (which feels excessive for a single node).

This limitation applies to other configurable nodes too—Principled BSDF, Mix Shader, etc.

Since we already have the ability to copy colors between files using Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V, it would be incredibly helpful to extend this functionality to entire nodes or selections of nodes across files.

100%

Development Status: Open

Upvote 11 Downvote 0
lingtalfi
8 Aug 2025

1 Comment

slowk1d

Sometimes it's not even possible to copy/paste nodes within the same file (the"clipboard empty" message)... So yeah, it definetely needs improvement.