Best Clipboard Manager for Mac (2026)

How we evaluated these apps

Every clipboard manager here was tested daily on macOS 15 Sequoia (Apple Silicon) and macOS 26 Tahoe. The criteria: how well it handles images, how fast the search is, whether it recognises content type, what text manipulation it supports, and whether it's genuinely native or an Electron/web wrapper in disguise.

Price matters less than value — a $2/month tool you use 50 times a day is a better deal than a free one that fails at your actual workflow. We've noted where free options are genuinely sufficient and where they aren't.

1. Pastery — best overall

Pastery is a native Swift clipboard manager built exclusively for macOS 15 and later. Every item you copy — text, screenshot, link, color, file path — becomes a typed card in your history. Invoke it with a keyboard shortcut (default ⌘⇧V) and the panel opens instantly. Search works across all content types.

The feature that separates it from every other app on this list: OCR-indexed image history. Every screenshot you copy is analysed by Apple Vision in the background. Type any text that appeared in the screenshot — an error message, a UI label, a variable name — and Pastery finds it immediately, even if it was copied two weeks ago. No other dedicated clipboard manager on macOS does this.

Overview Mode (press the hotkey twice, or use the toolbar) opens a full-window grid with sidebar filters: filter by content type (images only, text only, colors only), by source app (everything copied from Figma, or VS Code, or Chrome), or by date range. It turns your clipboard history into a searchable record of your work rather than a list you scroll past.

Text transforms are a daily-use feature once you discover them: hover any text clip and one click lets you uppercase, lowercase, format JSON, minify JSON, decode URL encoding, strip HTML, or trim whitespace — all applied to the paste, not to the stored clip. Developers use this constantly. Read more in our best clipboard manager for Mac developers guide.

One genuinely unique feature: a built-in background remover. Copy any image and Pastery can strip the background in one click, producing a clean cutout ready to paste. No third-party app, no upload, no waiting.

What Pastery doesn't do: no iCloud sync, no iPhone app. Your clipboard stays on your Mac — which is a privacy feature as much as a limitation. If cross-device is essential, see Paste below.

• Price: $2.99/mo · $24.99/yr (~$2.08/mo) · $59.99 lifetime · 14-day free trial
• Best for: Anyone who copies screenshots, wants OCR search, or needs text transforms
• Not for: Users who need clipboard sync across Mac and iPhone

2. Maccy — best free option

Maccy is the cleanest free clipboard manager on macOS. Open-source (MIT), ~3 MB, under 40 MB RAM, and does exactly one thing: a searchable list of everything you've copied, accessible in under a second via a keyboard shortcut.

If you exclusively copy plain text and URLs and want to pay nothing, Maccy is the right answer. The limitation hits when you start copying screenshots: Maccy stores image data but renders nothing — you see "Image (2.1 MB)" with no thumbnail. You have to paste it somewhere to identify it.

No text transforms, no filters, no content-type awareness. It's minimal by design, and that's genuinely its appeal to a specific type of user. For a full comparison, see our Pastery vs. Maccy head-to-head.

• Price: Free
• Best for: Text-only clipboard history; privacy-conscious users who want open source
• Not for: Anyone who regularly copies screenshots or visual content

3. Paste — best for cross-device workflows

Paste (pasteapp.io) is a visually polished clipboard manager with one capability no one else on this list offers: iCloud sync across all your devices. Your Mac clipboard history appears on your iPhone and iPad. There's even a custom iOS keyboard extension. If you work across devices and need the same clipboard everywhere, Paste is the only real option.

The Mac app is well-designed: visual cards similar to Pastery, pinboards for organising frequently-used clips, per-app exclusion rules. The clipboard search is fast and the UI is among the most refined in the category.

Where it falls short: no OCR search (images are shown as thumbnails but not indexed by text content), no text transforms, and the annual price ($29.99/yr) is slightly higher than Pastery's ($24.99/yr). We cover this in detail in our Pastery vs. Paste comparison.

• Price: $2.49/mo · $29.99/yr · no lifetime option
• Best for: Anyone needing clipboard sync across Mac, iPhone, and iPad
• Not for: Users who need OCR search or prefer local-only storage

4. Raycast — good enough if you're already there

Raycast is a Mac launcher — a Spotlight replacement that runs as an Electron app. Clipboard history is one of many built-in commands. It's included in the free tier, the UI is reasonable, and if Raycast is already your launcher of choice, the clipboard history may be sufficient for basic needs.

The limitations are meaningful: Raycast is Electron-based (not native Swift), which means heavier resource usage and a different feel from system apps. Clipboard history is one tab inside a general launcher rather than a dedicated tool. Screenshot search via OCR is available on Raycast Pro (paid), but it searches your stored screenshots — not your copied images specifically. No text transforms.

For users deeply embedded in the Raycast ecosystem who want to reduce the number of running apps, the built-in clipboard is worth trying before adding Pastery. For anyone who copies screenshots regularly and wants to retrieve them by content, see our Pastery vs. Raycast comparison.

• Price: Free (clipboard included); Pro from $8/mo for OCR and AI features
• Best for: Existing Raycast users who want one less app running
• Not for: Users who want clipboard-first, native-Swift performance

5. Alfred — the power user's choice for workflows

Alfred is the oldest and most extensible launcher on this list. Clipboard history is part of the Powerpack (£34 one-time), which also unlocks Workflows, Snippets, and file actions. If you're an Alfred power user building complex automations, the clipboard history integrates naturally with your existing setup.

Alfred's clipboard history is functional: text and images, basic search, configurable history length. What it lacks is any visual polish — items are listed in a plain dropdown without card-based previews — and there's no OCR search or text transforms. It stores images but doesn't render thumbnails in the list.

Alfred rewards power users who invest time in its Workflows. For everyone else, it's an expensive way to get a basic clipboard manager when Pastery or Maccy do the job better at that specific task.

• Price: Free (basic) + £34 one-time Powerpack (clipboard requires Powerpack)
• Best for: Existing Alfred power users who already own the Powerpack
• Not for: Anyone primarily looking for a clipboard manager (too much overhead)

Which clipboard manager should you choose?

The right answer depends on one question above all: do you copy screenshots?

If you only copy plain text and URLs, Maccy is free and genuinely sufficient. Every other app on this list is overkill for that workflow.

If you copy screenshots — even occasionally — and want to find them again by what's inside them, Pastery is the only option. OCR search for clipboard history doesn't exist anywhere else.

If you work across Mac and iPhone and need the same clipboard everywhere, Paste is the choice — it's the only one with iCloud sync and an iOS app.

If you're already invested in Raycast or Alfred and want to reduce the number of background apps, the built-in clipboard history in those tools may be enough to start — you can always switch later.

For a more detailed breakdown by use case, see our guide on which clipboard manager to choose, or browse our specific comparisons: Pastery vs. Maccy, Pastery vs. Paste, and Pastery vs. Raycast.

Frequently asked questions