Comparison
Pastery vs. Raycast Clipboard History: When the Bundled Option Isn't Enough
Raycast is everywhere in the Mac power-user community, and its built-in clipboard history is good enough for a lot of people. Here's where it stops being enough — and what Pastery does that Raycast doesn't.
Written by the Pastery team. We've tried to fairly represent what Raycast does and doesn't do.
Stay on Raycast clipboard
- You're already a heavy Raycast user and clipboard is a secondary need
- Your history is mostly recent text and you rarely need items from days ago
- You want one less app running
Switch to Pastery
- You copy screenshots and need to find them by what's in them
- You need deep history with per-app and date filters
- You want text transforms before pasting
- You want fully local clipboard storage with no cloud component
Feature comparison
| Feature | Raycast clipboard | Pastery |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free (Pro $8/mo) | $2.99/mo · $24.99/yr · $59.99 lifetime |
| Standalone app | Part of Raycast platform | Yes |
| Text history | Yes | Yes |
| Image history | Thumbnails | Thumbnails + OCR |
| OCR image search | — | Apple Vision |
| Filter by app / date | — | Yes |
| Text transforms before paste | — | JSON, URL decode, case, more |
| Fully local storage | Local by default, cloud for AI | Always local, no cloud |
| History depth | 3 months | Until cleared |
| Password manager safety | Yes | Yes |
Why Raycast clipboard is recommended everywhere
Raycast has become the default app launcher recommendation for Mac power users. It handles app switching, web search, window management, snippets, and dozens of community extensions — all from one shortcut. The clipboard history feature ships with the free tier, which means anyone who installs Raycast gets a working clipboard manager without doing anything else.
For that audience, it's a rational choice. You're already in the app, it stores text and images, the search is fast, and you don't need to think about it. The clipboard panel opens inside Raycast's familiar interface. It works.
The question isn't whether Raycast clipboard is good. It is. The question is whether it's enough — and for a specific set of workflows, it clearly isn't.
Where Raycast clipboard falls short
No OCR search inside screenshots
This is the biggest gap. Copy a screenshot of a browser console error, a design spec, or a documentation page — Raycast stores it as a thumbnail. You can scroll through thumbnails visually. But you cannot search what's inside the image. If you don't remember exactly when you copied it, you're browsing a grid hoping to recognise the right one.
Pastery runs Apple Vision OCR on every screenshot at copy time. The extracted text goes into the search index. Type the error message or function name you remember seeing, and it surfaces the screenshot immediately. Our guide on searching inside screenshots on Mac covers this in detail.
No per-app or per-date filters
Raycast clipboard is a chronological list with text search. That's it's entire navigation model. If you need to find something you copied from VS Code three days ago, you're scrolling and searching with no way to narrow by source app or date range.
Pastery's Overview Mode has a sidebar that filters by content type, source application, and date range simultaneously. "Show me everything I copied from Figma last Tuesday" is a five-second operation.
No text transforms
Copy a minified JSON response, a URL-encoded string, or some all-caps text that needs fixing before it's usable. In Raycast, you paste it as-is and fix it manually. In Pastery, you hover over the clip before pasting and apply the transform — format JSON, decode URL encoding, change case — in one click. The modified version is pasted; the original stays in history unchanged. See how to format JSON before pasting on Mac.
It's bundled, not dedicated
Raycast clipboard history is one feature inside a large platform application. If Raycast updates and changes how clipboard works, you update all of Raycast. If you decide Raycast isn't for you, you loose your clipboard history with it. A dedicated clipboard manager owns that data independently and doesn't change its behavior based on what's happening with a broader app.
Can you use both?
Yes, and they don't conflict. Pastery runs in the background independently of Raycast. You can keep using Raycast as your launcher and use Pastery's shortcut when you need your clipboard history. The two apps don't interfere with each other.
Some people do this: Raycast for everything else, Pastery for serious clipboard work. It's a reasonable setup if you're already invested in the Raycast ecosystem but find its clipboard lacking. Compare all options in our best clipboard manager for Mac developers guide.
Frequently asked questions
Is Raycast clipboard history good enough?
For recent text and images, yes. For OCR search inside screenshots, per-app filtering, or text transforms — no. Raycast clipboard is a solid starting point, not a full replacement for a dedicated clipboard manager.
Does Raycast clipboard search inside images?
No. Raycast stores image thumbnails but can't search their contents. Pastery uses Apple Vision OCR to index every screenshot you copy, making them searchable by what's inside them.
Is Raycast clipboard history private?
Clipboard data is stored locally by default. However, Raycast connects to its own servers for AI features and extension syncing. If hard local-only storage is a requirement, Pastery stores everything on device with no cloud component.
Can I use both Raycast and Pastery at the same time?
Yes, they don't conflict. Keep Raycast as your launcher and use Pastery as your dedicated clipboard manager. Each opens with its own shortcut and runs independently.
What does Pastery do that Raycast clipboard doesn't?
Apple Vision OCR to search text inside screenshots, Overview Mode with app and date filters, text transforms before pasting, and fully local storage with no cloud component.
