What does it mean to set clipboard=unnamed?

Question

Today I was trying to copy and paste multiple lines in visual block mode and found this excellent answer on StackOverflow showing how to do it.

Below is a gif of what I was trying to accomplish:

When I tried this in my vim, it didn't work. But after I remove the set clipboard=unnamed from my vimrc, pasting a block worked flawlessly.

So, what the command set clipboard=unnamed does?

Answer 1

This question is answered at stackoverflow. It controls, how the clipboard register of vim is used.

Or you could always just :h 'clipboard'

Answer 2

Visual-blocking pasting with set clipboard=unnamed works for me in Vim 8 but not in Neovim. I'm pretty sure the issue you're describing related to this longstanding bug in Neovim.

Workaround from the thread that worked for me (Neovim 0.3.1):

Install nvim-miniyank and add this to your config.

map p <Plug>(miniyank-autoput)
map P <Plug>(miniyank-autoPut)