5+1 Best Clipboard Managers for macOS

*Clipboard managers can help you boost your productivity. Here are the five best ones for macOS. 📎

What’s a Clipboard Manager and why do I need one?

A clipboard manager can improve your workflow and help you be more productive. But what exactly is a clipboard manager, why do you need one, and which one should you use?

The Clipboard: Magic with ⌘+V

The clipboard is where macOS stores a text or file when you use copy or cut. When you hit paste, your computer inserts whatever’s saved in the clipboard. It’s basically a temporary storage area.

The big limitation with the native macOS clipboard is that there’s only one storage spot. Whenever you copy something new, whatever you had there is automatically deleted.

You probably know the frustration when you hit paste… and it’s the wrong thing because you copied something else in between. Then you have to go back and copy it again — it’s not great. 🙄

Clipboard Manager: Long-term Memory

Clipboard managers keep a history of the things you copied. That lets you go back and find them later without having to re-copy. That’s convenient because it saves you having to constantly jump back and forth between programs to copy and paste.

Clipboard managers also often come with additional features like cross-device sync (iPhone, iPad, Mac) or snippets.

Want to keep a history of things you copied for onto your clipboard for easy access later? Check out our five best clipboard managers below!

• Paste

• Copy’Em

• Clipy

• PasteBox

• Maccy

• Honorable mention: Curiosity

Paste

Paste is a popular clipboard manager for macOS. It has a simple and intuitive user interface that you can access through the menu bar or the shortcut Shift+ Command+V.

A nice feature of Paste is that it syncs your clipboard across your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. The (unavoidable) flipside of that is that your clipboard is stored in the cloud, which may be a privacy concern.

Paste’s clipboard stores anything added to it chronologically and you can see when and where something was copied. Pins let you categorize your content, keeping everything organized.

Once you find the content you’re looking for, you can double-click and paste it. Additional benefits include applying rules that let you simplify content**** so**** you don’t need to format anything before pasting. You can also copy and paste multiple items at the same time.

Pros

• User friendly UI

• Sync across macOS and iOS devices

• Nice additional features (e.g. rules)

Cons

• The interface doesn’t stay open

• Privacy: Your clipboard is stored in the cloud

Price: Free (14-day free trial), Paid ($1.99 per month or $9.99 per year)

Copy ‘Em

Copy ’Em has a lot of advanced features that make it a great clipboard manager for macOS. Opening the library via the menu bar lets you access copied items including text, images, HTML, code snippets, PDFs, and files.

Clicking on the items lets you sort them. Copy’Em also features lists and labels that help find items in your clipboard. Copy’Em syncs your clipboard between iPhones, iPads and Macs, making it easy to paste content between devices.

Keyboard shortcuts help save your favorite clipboard content forever, capture screenshots, collect data, and paste numerous snippets. You can also add apps to an “ignore” list if they gave content you don’t want to be copied (e.g. password managers).

A final nice feature in Copy**** ’Em is the Paste Queue that lets you batch-paste things from the clipboard.

Pros

• Easy to control

• Sync across macOS and iOS devices

• Batch-pasting

Cons

• No preference pane

• Privacy: Your clipboard is stored in the cloud

Price: $14.99

Clipy

Clipy is a clipboard manager that aims for simplicity and productivity. It’s not the most beautiful one out there, but hey it’s free!

Clipy helps you with clipboard entries and other copies. It also lets you decide what clipboard types you want to store. Additional features include snippet support, customization options, and app blacklisting.

Snippets are a nice feature where you can pin things from the clipboard and open them in a separate menu other than the main clipboard history, making them easily accessible, and ensuring they don’t fill up the top of the clipboard history list.

You can access Clipy from the macOS tray (top menu) or with the keyboard shortcut Cmd + Shift + V. Clipy is open-source (in case you’re a developer).

Pros

• Free and open-source

• Snippets

Cons

• Simple interface

• No support (open-source project)

Cost: Free

PasteBox

PasteBox is a lightweight snipper and clipboard manager for macOS. Like other clipboard managers, PasteBox makes it easy to copy different data types, including text, photos, and web pages. It also gives you options to manage and organize the content you have saved in the clipboard.

You can use keyboard shortcuts to quickly access PasteBox. It also includes a snippet manager that lets you to use and organize your snippets.

Pros

• Easy navigation

• Snippet manager

• Sync across macOS and iOS devices

Cons

• No search

• Privacy: Your clipboard is stored in the cloud

Price: $5.99

Maccy

Maccy is another lightweight macOS clipboard manager that’s also open-source.

Keyboard shortcuts are used for most of Maccy’s operations. That makes selecting clippings, pinning items, and clearing your history quick… once you’ve learned the shortcuts.

Unlike some of the other apps in this list, Maccy focuses solely on storing your clipboard history and making it accessible. On the plus-side that makes it easier to use, on the other hand… you get less stuff.

Like other clipboard managers, Maccy lets you exclude specific apps. It also protects your information by storing your clipboard locally (not in the cloud).

Pros

• Lightweight and fast

• Open-source (if you’re a developer)

• Privacy: Keeps your clipboard local

Cons

• A bit of a learning curve for shortcuts

• No sync between devices

Price: Free from GitHub, $9.99 in the Mac App Store

[Thanks Carlos Henriques for alerting me to the free version!]

Honorable mention: Curiosity

Before signing off, we’d be remiss not to mention that Curiosity also includes a clipboard manager (that’s us, so we may be biased here).

Curiosity is a productivity app that gives you one place to search all your files and cloud apps (Gmail, Dropbox, etc.). In addition, it acts as a launcher that gives you a quick way to open programs, join meetings… and manage your clipboard!

Similar to the other apps in the list, Curiosity lets you save your clipboard. Its powerful search lets you easily find anything in your clipboard (or anywhere else). In addition, you can manage your clipboard history by hiding/deleting items you don’t want stored. Curiosity keeps all your data safe on your computer, so you don’t have to worry about your clipboard staying private.

You can access Curiosity with ⌥ + Space shortcut and see the clipboard with the hotkey <.

Pros

• Powerful search and clipboard manager

• Pin, hide or delete things from your clipboard

• Privacy: Keeps your clipboard local

Cons

• No snippets (yet)

• No sync between devices

Price: Free version includes clipboard manager, Pro version $9.99 per month

Conclusion

A good clipboard manager can save you time and help boost your productivity. Using any of these clipboard managers can help do that with additional features to complement macOS!

We hope this post helps you find your favorite clipboard manager! 🙌

Let us know what you think of the list, and if we missed any clipboard managers you think are awesome.

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