How to Copy an Item from Path of Exile Trade into Path of Building

If you've spent any time optimizing a Path of Exile build, you've probably hit this workflow: you spot a promising item on poe.trade or the official trade site (trade.pathofexile.com), and you want to import it into Path of Building (PoB) to see exactly how it affects your character's stats before spending a single chaos orb. The good news is the process is straightforward once you know what you're looking for — but there are a few variables that can trip you up depending on your setup.

What's Actually Happening When You Import an Item

Path of Building doesn't connect to the trade site directly. Instead, it reads item data from your clipboard using a standardized text format that PoE generates whenever you press Ctrl+C on an item tooltip in-game. The trade sites expose this same format through a dedicated copy function, letting you bypass the need to own the item first.

This matters because PoB is parsing structured text, not pulling from an API. If the text is malformed or from an incompatible source, the import will silently fail or produce incorrect results.

Step-by-Step: Copying an Item from the Trade Site into PoB

1. Find Your Item on the Trade Site

Navigate to either:

• trade.pathofexile.com (the official GGG trade site)
• poe.trade (the legacy community site, still widely used)

Search for the item you want to evaluate using filters.

2. Copy the Item Text 🔍

This is where users most commonly get confused, because the method differs slightly by site:

On trade.pathofexile.com:

• Hover over the item listing to see its tooltip
• Click the "Copy Item" button that appears — usually a small icon near the item name or in the listing card
• This copies the item's raw text block to your clipboard

On poe.trade:

• Look for the item tooltip preview on the listing
• Right-click the item icon or look for a "Copy" button in the listing
• Some listings require you to hover to trigger the copy option

⚠️ Not all trade listings display a copy button consistently — this depends on how the seller listed the item and whether the site has fully rendered the tooltip. If the button isn't appearing, try refreshing or using a different browser.

3. Import Into Path of Building

With the item text on your clipboard:

1. Open Path of Building (Community Fork is recommended — more on that below)
2. Navigate to the Items tab
3. Click the "Import Item" button — it's typically in the top section of the Items panel
4. PoB will read your clipboard automatically and populate the item fields
5. You can then equip it to a slot by clicking the relevant slot in your character's equipment panel

If the import worked correctly, you'll immediately see your stats recalculate in the Calcs tab.

Path of Building Version Matters

There are two main versions of PoB in circulation, and this affects your experience:

The Community Fork handles item imports more reliably, especially for newer item bases, unique items, and league mechanics introduced after the original PoB stopped receiving updates. If imports are failing or stats look wrong, version mismatch between PoB and the current league is often the culprit.

Why an Import Might Fail or Show Wrong Stats

Several factors affect whether the copied item loads correctly:

• League-specific items: Items from a new league mechanic may not yet be in your version of PoB's database. Updating PoB usually resolves this.
• Clipboard format issues: Some browsers or clipboard managers alter the copied text. Pasting into Notepad first can confirm whether the text block looks intact — it should start with Rarity: and contain line-separated modifiers.
• Fractured or synthesised modifiers: Older PoB versions may not correctly parse these item types, showing blank or incomplete stats.
• Corrupted items: Implicits added by corruption are sometimes parsed inconsistently depending on PoB version.

The Item Text Format Itself 📋

If you want to manually verify what PoB expects, a valid item text block looks roughly like this:

Rarity: Rare Item Name Base Type -------- Requirements: Level: 70 -------- Sockets: R-G-B -------- Item Level: 85 -------- +80 to maximum Life +45% to Fire Resistance 

PoB parses each section separated by -------- lines. If your clipboard text matches this general structure, the import should work. If it's missing sections or has extra characters at the start, that's usually a sign the copy didn't work cleanly from the trade site.

Variables That Determine Your Experience

How smoothly this workflow goes depends on a few things specific to your situation:

• Which PoB fork you're running and how recently you've updated it
• Which trade site you're using and whether its copy function is working in your browser
• The item type — common bases import cleanly; niche or league-specific items may need a PoB update
• Your browser's clipboard behavior — some privacy-focused browsers restrict clipboard writes from web pages

The process is the same for virtually every player, but whether the import is accurate enough to make a reliable gear decision depends on how current your PoB database is relative to the item you're evaluating.