The shortlist
| Option | Cost | Best for | Main trade-off |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spotlight | Included with macOS 26 and 27 | Something you copied minutes ago | Copies last a week at most; no favorites; Spotlight pastes text without formatting |
| Clipboard History | Free, open source | Finder files, formatted text and clips grouped by project | No sync, OCR or plain-text option |
| Maccy | Free, open source; $9.99 on the App Store | A minimal keyboard menu with pins and plain-text paste | Maccy has no groups; 200 items by default |
| Raycast | Free; Pro from $10 a month | Clipboard history inside a launcher, with text recognition, plus AI with Pro | Raycast’s free plan keeps up to 3 months; a whole launcher to adopt |
| Clipy | Free, open source | A menu of recent clips plus text snippets | Clipy went eight years without a release before June 2026 |
How we chose: Clipboard History is our app, so weigh its section accordingly. Every other fact links to the developer’s own site, documentation, release notes or store listing, checked on September 24, 2026. We picked well-known free apps with a release in the past year and listed paid-only apps separately; Flycut, for example, hasn’t had a release since December 2020. This is a feature comparison, not a speed benchmark.
1. Spotlight: best for recent copies, built in
- Cost
- Included with macOS
- Requires
- macOS 26 or 27
- Keeps copies
- 30 min, 8 h or 7 days
- Opens with
- ⌘Space, then ⌘4
Since macOS 26 Tahoe, Spotlight has a Clipboard view that lists what you copied recently. It stays off until you allow it, and since macOS 26.1 Spotlight keeps copies for 30 minutes, 8 hours or 7 days. It keeps text, images and files, but pastes text without its formatting, and it has no favorites or groups.
macOS 27 Golden Gate runs only on Apple silicon, and macOS 26 supports only a few Intel Macs, so Sonoma, Sequoia and most Intel Macs have no built-in history at all.
Pick it if you only need a recent copy now and then. Look further if copies should last longer than a week or you’re on an older Mac. Step-by-step: how to view clipboard history on Mac.
2. Clipboard History: best for files, formatted text and groups
- Cost
- Free, MIT license
- Requires
- macOS 14 or later, Apple silicon or Intel
- Keeps
- 1,000 clips (100–10,000)
- Version checked
- 0.0.27
This is our app. ⇧⌘V (the default shortcut, which you can change) opens a panel over any app with your text, links, formatted text, PNG and TIFF images, and Finder files and folders, which are saved by reference. Favorites and named groups keep clips you reuse and are never pruned, and search reaches your whole history, including the name of the app you copied from.
History stays on your Mac, with no account, sync or telemetry. It skips copies made while one of 7 password managers is in front and items apps mark as concealed or transient, and it can pause for 5 minutes to 8 hours. It has no sync, OCR, plain-text option or snippets.
Pick it if you copy files in Finder, sort clips by project, or want an app you can inspect. See the features, the files and images guide or the source on GitHub.
3. Maccy: best for a minimal keyboard menu
- Cost
- Free; Maccy’s App Store edition is $9.99
- Requires
- macOS 14 or later
- Keeps
- 200 items (up to 999)
- Version checked
- 2.7.1, August 10, 2026
Maccy describes itself as a clipboard manager that does one job. ⇧⌘C opens a compact menu you drive from the keyboard: ⌥⏎ pastes, ⌥⇧⏎ pastes without formatting, and ⌥P pins a clip with its own letter shortcut. Maccy recognizes the text in copied images so you can search for them, and 2.7 redesigned its preview as a slide-out panel with a button that copies that text.
Maccy is MIT-licensed and free on GitHub and Homebrew; the maccy.app download is pay-what-you-want from $4.99 and the Mac App Store edition is $9.99, both to support development. Maccy’s README warns that maccyapp.net and maccyapp.com are fake sites spreading malware, so get it from maccy.app or GitHub.
Pick it if you want the lightest tool and paste plain text often. Look further if you want named groups or a Finder-focused workflow. Details: Maccy vs Clipboard History.
4. Raycast: best if you also want a launcher
- Cost
- Free; Pro from $10 a month
- Runs on
- Mac and Windows
- Keeps
- Up to 3 months free
- Version checked
- 2.4, September 14, 2026
Raycast is a launcher, and clipboard history is one of its commands. Raycast keeps text, images, files, links, emails and colors, can recognize text in images and read QR codes, pastes as plain text or any format the source offered, and with Pro adds Ask Clipboard for AI questions about your history.
Raycast says copied content stays on your computer, encrypted. Its Cloud Sync, part of Pro, doesn’t sync clipboard history. Longer history (6 months, a year or unlimited) needs Pro.
Pick it if you already use Raycast or want a launcher anyway. Look further if you want one small app, or history beyond three months without paying. Details: Raycast vs Clipboard History.
5. Clipy: best for a menu with snippets
- Cost
- Free, MIT license
- Requires
- Ventura 13 or later
- Style
- Menu plus snippets
- Version checked
- 1.3.0, June 20, 2026
Clipy is a long-running open-source clipboard extension: a shortcut opens a menu of recent clips, and snippets hold text you paste often. Clipy 1.3.0, released in June 2026, was its first release in about eight years, with native Apple silicon support and a new database.
Pick it if you like a menu-style history and want snippets for free. Look further if you prefer a searchable panel to a menu. Download it from clipy-app.com.
Paid options worth knowing
Paste: best for every Apple device
Paste costs $3.99 a month, $29.99 a year or $89.99 lifetime, after a 7-day trial. It syncs your history through iCloud to Mac, iPhone and iPad, and adds pinboards, filters, editing, plain-text paste and Paste MCP for AI tools. Paste vs Clipboard History.
Alfred Powerpack: best for automation
Alfred’s clipboard history comes with the £34 Powerpack, which now includes a free upgrade to Alfred 6. Alfred pairs it with snippets, text expansion and workflows, and keeps clips for 24 hours to 3 months. Alfred vs Clipboard History.
How to choose
- Check your macOS. On macOS 26 or 27, try Spotlight first. On Sonoma, Sequoia or an older Intel Mac, you need an app.
- Decide how long copies should last. Spotlight keeps a week at most and Raycast’s free plan 3 months. Clipboard History and Maccy keep a number of clips instead, however old.
- Know what “images” means. Most apps keep copied images. Maccy, Raycast and Paste can also read the text in them, so you can search screenshots by their words; Clipboard History can’t.
- Decide on sync. Of the apps here, only Paste syncs clipboard history between devices; Raycast’s Cloud Sync leaves it out.
- Check the privacy controls. Look for password-manager skipping, per-app exclusions, a pause and a way to clear everything.
More on privacy in the Clipboard History privacy details and how to clear the clipboard on Mac.
Sources
- Apple: Search your Clipboard history in Spotlight and MacRumors on macOS 26.1 retention
- MacMost on Spotlight’s clipboard history: text without its formatting, images and files
- MacRumors: macOS Golden Gate, Apple silicon only
- Maccy README, releases, maccy.app download and App Store listing
- Raycast manual, pricing, Cloud Sync and changelog
- Clipy releases and clipy-app.com
- Paste pricing, Paste Power Search and Alfred Powerpack
- Flycut releases