Press ⇧⌘V in any app to search everything you’ve copied — text, links, formatted text, images, files and folders — and paste it right back. History never leaves your Mac.
Free · v0.0.27 · macOS 14+
Release prep
PNG Image
Brand Guidelines.pdf
Launch Assets
hero-banner.png, app-icon.png, social-card.png
Pitch deck v1.keyIt opens right here. Anything you copy on this page shows up in it too.
Pasted clips land here.
Runs entirely in this page. Nothing you copy is uploaded.
Text, links, formatted text, images, files and folders: each one is saved, searchable and pasted back the way you copied it.
What it doesn’t keep: the text inside images, and image data an app copies only as JPEG, GIF, HEIC or PDF. Finder files of any type are fine.
Start typing and the list narrows with every letter. Search matches the start of words in text, links, file names, folder paths and even the app you copied from, so typing “safari” finds what you copied in Safari. Case and accents don’t matter, and the closest matches come first.
The list shows your 100 most recent clips; search reaches your whole history and shows the best 100 matches.
Press ⌘D or click the star to add a clip to Favorites. For a project, a client or a trip, make a group with the + tab and add clips to it from the right-click menu. A clip can be in several groups.
Favorites and grouped clips don’t count toward your history limit and are never removed automatically. Switch tabs with ⌥1 for All, ⌥2 for Favorites and ⌥3–9 for your groups.
⇧⌘V is only the default. Record any shortcut you like in Settings → General, where you can also have the app open at login.
Appearance follows your Mac or stays Light or Dark. Change it in Settings, or with the button in the panel’s search bar.
⌘Y opens the whole clip: all of the text, RTF with its formatting (HTML shows as plain text), the image scaled to fit, or a list of files with their sizes. Paste or copy it from there.
⏎ or a click pastes into the app you were using, and ⌘1–9 pastes one of the first nine clips. Without the optional Accessibility permission, the clip is copied and you press ⌘V. To copy without pasting, right-click a clip and choose Copy.
The panel opens in the middle of the screen you’re using, over full-screen apps and on every Space, and the app you’re in keeps focus.
It opens at 720 × 480 points. Drag any edge to resize it anywhere from 560 × 340 to 1400 × 1000, and it remembers the size. Drag the background to move it.
Open the panel, pause recording, open Settings or check for updates from the menu bar icon. There’s no Dock icon to manage.
It keeps your latest 1,000 clips by default; choose from 100 to 10,000 in Settings → Storage. There’s also a 10 MB item limit, which you can set from 1 to 100 MB: formatted text over it is kept as plain text, an image only as any text copied with it, and plain text is skipped.
Since macOS 26 Tahoe, Spotlight can list what you copied recently — handy for something from a few minutes ago. Clipboard History is for everything after that: it keeps your last 1,000 clips by default, runs on macOS 14 and 15 too, and pastes clips back the way you copied them.
| Spotlight clipboard |  | |
|---|---|---|
| Works on | macOS 26 Tahoe and later (macOS 27 needs Apple silicon) | macOS 14 Sonoma and later, on Apple silicon and Intel |
| Open it with | ⌘Space, then ⌘4 | ⇧⌘V in any app, or a shortcut you choose |
| How long clips stay | 30 minutes, 8 hours or 7 days (macOS 26.1 and later) | No time limit: your latest 1,000 clips by default, up to 10,000 |
| Keep a clip for good | Not available | Favorites and groups, never removed automatically |
| What you paste | Text without its formatting, plus images and files | Text with its formatting, plus images and files |
| Price | Included with macOS | Free and open source (MIT) |
There’s no clipboard history built in: Finder → Edit → Show Clipboard shows only the last thing you copied.
How to see clipboard history on any MacPaste, Raycast or Alfred may suit you better. See how each compares with Clipboard History:
Open the panel, find a clip and paste it without reaching for the mouse. The app lists its shortcuts under ⌘/; a few on that list don’t work yet in this version, but every one on this site does.
A clipboard holds passwords, addresses and half-written messages. Clipboard History has no account, no sync and no analytics, and it’s careful about what it records in the first place.
Your history is a SQLite database inside the app’s own sandbox container. Its only network connection is the update check (Check for Updates… in the menu bar), which asks GitHub for the latest version.
Nothing is recorded while one of these apps is in front. Add any other app in Settings → Privacy → Excluded apps.
Apps can mark a copy as concealed, transient or auto-generated (the nspasteboard.org conventions). Clipboard History ignores those copies wherever they come from.
Pause recording for 5 minutes to 8 hours, or until you resume. Delete one clip, or clear everything in Settings → Storage; neither can be undone. The database isn’t encrypted, and its search index can keep words from deleted and cleared clips, so turn on FileVault to encrypt your disk.
You don’t have to take anyone’s word for it: read the code, see every release and check how updates are verified.
Free to use, study and change. No account, no trial, no ads.
Read the licenseThe whole app is on GitHub: how it watches the clipboard, stores clips and pastes them back.
Browse the sourceThe app is signed with a Developer ID and notarized by Apple, so macOS can check it before it opens.
How downloads are verifiedChoose Check for Updates… in the menu bar; Sparkle installs an update only if its EdDSA signature matches. Or drag a new download over the old app, and your history stays.
Read the changelogShort answers to what people ask first.
Yes. It’s free and open source under the MIT License, with no account, no trial, no ads and nothing to buy. The source code is on GitHub.
Any Mac with macOS 14 Sonoma or later, including macOS 15 Sequoia and macOS 26 Tahoe. It’s a universal app, so it runs natively on Apple silicon and Intel. The app is in English.
Plain text and links; formatted text (RTF or HTML, kept with a plain-text version); images copied as PNG or TIFF, such as a screenshot copied to the clipboard; and Finder files and folders, which are saved by reference rather than copied. It doesn’t read the text inside images.
It skips anything copied while a password manager is the frontmost app: 1Password, Bitwarden, Dashlane, Keychain Access, Apple Passwords, LastPass and KeePassXC. It also skips clipboard items that apps mark as concealed, transient or auto-generated, which is how many password managers flag secrets. A password manager’s browser extension copies while your browser is in front, so its copies are saved unless the extension marks them as concealed. It can’t recognize a secret copied as ordinary text from another app, so add sensitive apps in Settings → Privacy → Excluded apps, or pause recording first.
In a SQLite database inside the app’s sandbox container: ~/Library/Containers/app.clipboard-history/Data/Library/Application Support/Clipboard History/clipboard.sqlite. It stays on your Mac. The app has no account and no analytics, and it goes online only to check for updates.
Quit it from the menu bar, then drag Clipboard History from Applications to the Trash. To remove your history and settings too, delete its container folder, ~/Library/Containers/app.clipboard-history.
macOS 26 Tahoe and later can show recent clipboard items in Spotlight: press ⌘Space, then ⌘4. It’s off until you turn it on, keeps text, images and files for 30 minutes, 8 hours or 7 days (since macOS 26.1), and pastes text without its formatting. Clipboard History also runs on macOS 14 Sonoma and macOS 15 Sequoia, keeps 1,000 items by default (up to 10,000) plus favorites and groups until you remove them, pastes formatted text with its formatting, and opens with ⇧⌘V from any app.
Free and open source, for any Mac with macOS 14 or later.