diff --git a/clipmenud b/clipmenud
index 71be9cf..0f440c1 100755
--- a/clipmenud
+++ b/clipmenud
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ lock_file=$cache_dir/lock
 lock_timeout=2
 
 _xsel() {
-    xsel --logfile /dev/null "$@"
+    timeout 1 xsel --logfile /dev/null "$@"
 }
 
 get_first_line() {