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Managing Pastes

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Once a paste is created, you can edit it, fork it, download it, view it as raw text, or delete it.

Editing a Paste

Section titled “Editing a Paste”

Only the paste owner (and moderators) can edit a paste.

To edit: Navigate to the paste page and click Edit, or go directly to /paste/{hash}/edit/.

Edit paste form

The edit form is identical to the create form. Changes you make:

  • Update the paste title, description, visibility, or tags
  • Expiration: the menu starts on Keep current. Pick a new duration to restart the countdown from now, or Never to remove the expiry
  • Password: type a new password to set or change it; leave the field empty to keep the current one. When the paste has a password, a Remove password box appears
  • Edit file content or filename: every file you change generates a new revision (previous version is preserved in revision history)
  • Add new files: new file tabs can be added up to the max files limit
  • Remove files: select a file tab and click Remove file (at least one must remain)

After saving, the paste version number increments. Changed files get a new entry in the revisions table. Unchanged files are not affected.

A change note (up to 500 characters) can be attached to a revision through the REST API (change_note when updating a single file); it then appears in the revision history. The edit form does not have a change note field.

Viewing Revisions

Section titled “Viewing Revisions”

Every time a paste is edited, per-file revision records are created. View the full history at:

/paste/{hash}/revisions/

The revision history shows each version with timestamp, author, and change note.

To compare two versions:

/paste/{hash}/diff/1...2

Replace 1 and 2 with the version numbers to compare. See Revision History for more.

Forking a Paste

Section titled “Forking a Paste”

Forking clones a paste (all its files) into your own account. The fork is a new, independent paste - changes to the fork don’t affect the original.

To fork: Click the Fork button on a paste page.

Who can fork:

  • Other members can fork only public pastes that have no password and no burn-after-read.
  • Authors can fork any of their own pastes. The copy keeps the original’s visibility, password, and burn setting.
  • The Fork button is hidden when a fork is not allowed.

The forked paste:

  • Has parent_id set to the original paste’s ID
  • Increments the original paste’s fork_count
  • Fires a BuddyPress notification to the original paste owner (if notifications enabled)
  • Belongs to you - you can edit, delete, and manage it independently

Requires Paste Forking to be enabled in Settings → General, and the snipshare/fork-paste ability.

Downloading a Paste

Section titled “Downloading a Paste”

Download buttons are available on the paste view page.

Paste type Download format
Single-file paste Original file with its natural filename
Multi-file paste ZIP archive named after the paste title

Direct download URLs:

/paste/{hash}/download/

Multi-file ZIP downloads require the PHP ZipArchive extension. See Requirements for details.

Raw View

Section titled “Raw View”

View the raw, unformatted text content of a paste at:

/paste/{hash}/raw/

For multi-file pastes, files are concatenated with // filename.ext separators.

To view a specific file only:

/paste/{hash}/raw/{filename}

Raw and download URLs respect access control. Visitors who may not read the paste get a 403 (password-protected) or a not-found response (private). Burn-after-read pastes refuse raw and download (403) until the reader reveals them on the paste page, and hide both links afterwards.

Deleting a Paste

Section titled “Deleting a Paste”

To delete: Click the Delete button on your paste. This moves the paste to the trash (status = trashed). Trashed pastes are no longer accessible to visitors. The author and moderators can still read them.

Administrators can view and permanently delete trashed pastes from SnipShare → All Pastes in the admin.

Trashed, expired, and burned pastes are permanently deleted after 30 days, at most 200 per hourly run. Developers can change the period with the snipshare_retention_days filter.

Moderators (users with the snipshare/moderate ability) can trash any paste regardless of ownership.

Password-Protected Pastes

Section titled “Password-Protected Pastes”

When visiting a password-protected paste, you see a password prompt. Enter the correct password to unlock the paste.

  • The unlock is per browser and lasts 1 hour. Logged-in users are unlocked through their login session. Guests get a random snipshare_visitor cookie (HttpOnly, SameSite=Lax, 1 day).
  • Wrong passwords are throttled: after 5 failed attempts in 15 minutes from the same IP address for the same paste, further attempts are refused until the window ends.
  • The author and moderators never need the password.
  • Shortcodes, embeds, and oEmbed never unlock a paste. They show a placeholder with an Open paste or View paste link.