Clipboard History FAQ

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.

Download the disk image, open it and drag Clipboard History to Applications. Open the app, finish the short setup, then press ⇧⌘V in any app.

Download and install steps

Press ⇧⌘V in any app, or click the Clipboard History icon in the menu bar and choose Open Clipboard History. The panel opens on the screen you’re working on, even over full-screen apps. Type to search, pick a clip with the arrow keys and press Return to paste it.

All keyboard shortcuts

Only if you choose to. The first-run setup has a Launch at login switch, which is off for new installations, and you can change it later in Settings → General. Versions 0.0.26 and earlier turned it on by themselves, so if you’re upgrading it may already be on. Recording starts when you click Start Clipboard History at the end of setup.

In the menu bar. Clipboard History has no Dock icon and no main window: click its menu bar icon for Open Clipboard History, Pause Recording, Settings…, Check for Updates… and Quit. A Dock icon shows up only while Settings or the setup window is open.

Yes. Record any shortcut in Settings → General; ⇧⌘V is only the default. The appearance can follow your Mac or stay Light or Dark: set it in Settings → General or with the appearance button in the panel’s search field.

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.

Files, folders and images in detail

Just type. Search matches the start of words and ignores case and accents, so “clip” finds “Clipboard” but “board” doesn’t. It looks through text, links, file names, folder paths and the name of the app you copied from, so “safari” finds what you copied in Safari. The best matches come first, and it searches your whole history in the current tab, showing up to 100 results.

With the optional auto-paste permission, Return or a click pastes the clip straight into the app you were using. Without it, the clip is copied and you press ⌘V. ⌘1–9 pastes one of the first nine clips directly. To copy a clip without pasting it, right-click it and choose Copy, or use Copy in the preview.

Yes. Select it and press ⌘Y to preview the full text, RTF with its formatting (HTML is shown as plain text), the full image, or the list of files with their sizes. The preview has Paste and Copy buttons, and Escape closes it.

Clipboard History saves a reference to each file or folder, plus a thumbnail, not a copy of its contents, so pasting gives your app the real item from where it is now. ⌘R reveals it in Finder. It follows files you move or rename on the same disk. If a file can’t be found any more, for example because it was deleted and the Trash emptied, moved to another disk or its drive isn’t connected, its clip is dimmed and marked with a warning, and pasting it inserts the file names as text instead.

Copying files and folders on a Mac

Yes, for RTF and HTML. Formatted text is saved together with a plain-text version and both go back to the clipboard when you paste, so the receiving app uses the richest format it supports. There isn’t a separate command that pastes without formatting.

Press ⌘D, or click the star, to add a clip to Favorites. To make a group, click + at the end of the tabs, or right-click a clip and choose Groups → New Group…; a clip can be in several groups. ⌥1 shows All, ⌥2 Favorites and ⌥3–9 your groups. Favorites and grouped clips are never removed automatically. Deleting a group (right-click its tab) keeps its clips, but they count toward the history limit again.

1,000 by default; choose anywhere from 100 to 10,000 in Settings → Storage. Favorites and clips in groups don’t count toward that limit and are never removed automatically. The list shows the 100 most recent clips in each tab, and search looks through your whole history.

Yes. The panel opens centered on the display you’re working on, on every Space and over full-screen apps, without taking focus from your app. Drag an edge to resize it, and it reopens at that size.

Mostly. Opening, searching, moving through clips, pasting, previewing, starring and switching tabs all have shortcuts. Copying without pasting, deleting clips and managing groups are done with the pointer, from the right-click menus; a few keys in the app’s own ⌘/ list, such as those for copying and deleting, don’t respond yet.

Keyboard shortcuts and pointer alternatives

It’s built to stay out of the way: it checks the clipboard twice a second and only does real work when you copy something new. Files and folders are stored as references, and the maximum item size (10 MB by default, 1 to 100 MB in Settings → Storage) keeps large copies out: text over it isn’t saved, formatted text over it is kept as plain text, and an image over it is kept only as any text copied with it.

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.

What it skips, and its limits

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.

Privacy details

No. Your clipboard often holds passwords, private messages and tokens, so Clipboard History keeps it on the Mac where you copied it. There’s no account, no server and no sync of any kind.

Only to check for updates (Check for Updates… in the menu bar). The update check downloads the update list from GitHub and, if you choose to install a newer version, the signed update. The app has no analytics or telemetry and never sends what you copy anywhere.

What leaves your Mac

Not by Clipboard History. The database is a regular SQLite file in the app’s sandbox container, protected by your macOS user account; turn on FileVault to encrypt your whole disk, this file included. Deleting a clip removes it from your history at once, but words from deleted clips can stay in the database’s search index, even after Clear all history.

Security details

Yes, from the menu bar. Pause Recording stops until you resume, even across restarts; Pause For stops for 5 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour or 8 hours and then resumes on its own. Nothing you copy while paused is ever recorded, and the panel shows a Paused label.

To delete one clip, point at it and click the trash button, or right-click it and choose Delete. To erase everything, open Settings → Storage and choose Clear all history, which deletes every clip, favorites included; your group names stay. Both happen at once and can’t be undone. Words from deleted clips can stay in the database’s search index; to remove every trace, delete the app’s data as the uninstall guide describes.

Delete your history and settings

To paste for you, Clipboard History sends ⌘V to the app you were using, and macOS allows that only for apps turned on in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility. The permission is optional: without it, choosing a clip copies it and you press ⌘V yourself. Recording, searching and copying work either way.

Setting up auto-paste

Quit Clipboard History, download the latest version from this site, open the disk image and drag the app over the old copy in Applications; your history and settings stay. To see whether there’s a new version, choose Check for Updates… in the menu bar. Updates installed from there come through Sparkle, the open-source updater many Mac apps use, and each one’s EdDSA signature is verified before it installs. If installing that way from version 0.0.27 fails, use the download instead.

Updating

The app is signed with a Developer ID and notarized by Apple, so macOS opens it after the usual confirmation for apps downloaded from the internet. It runs in the macOS app sandbox, asks only for the optional auto-paste permission, and its source code is public on GitHub.

Security details

No. Clipboard History is a Mac app that you download from this site or from the project’s GitHub Releases page. There’s no iPhone or iPad version.

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.

Complete uninstall guide

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.

Clipboard history on every macOS version

Paste is a paid app that syncs across your devices. Maccy is free and open source on GitHub, with a paid Mac App Store edition. Alfred’s clipboard history is part of its paid Powerpack. Clipboard History is free and open source, keeps your history on your Mac, and handles Finder files and folders in detail. If you need sync, text recognition in images or automation, another tool may suit you better.

Best free clipboard managers for Mac