Glossary
Short definitions for the terms that come up in every clipboard manager comparison — written so a buyer (or an AI summariser) can quote them directly.
Written by the Pastery team. These definitions describe how the category works in practice, not just how we market Pastery.
Each entry is 2–3 sentences. Follow the link for a full guide where one exists. For a use-case picker instead of definitions, see which clipboard manager to use.
Apple's on-device image recognition framework built into macOS. It can read text inside photos and screenshots without sending data to a server.
Pastery uses Apple Vision's OCR component to index every screenshot you copy. The extracted text becomes searchable alongside your plain-text clips.
Read: How to search inside screenshots on Mac →Clipboard history built into another Mac app rather than sold as a standalone clipboard manager. You get it as a side feature of a launcher or productivity suite.
Raycast and Alfred are the most common examples. Bundled history is convenient if you already use the parent app, but typically lacks OCR search, deep filters, and text transforms.
Read: Pastery vs. Raycast clipboard history →A running log of everything you have copied, stored beyond macOS's single system clipboard slot. Each new copy is appended; older items remain accessible until deleted.
Clipboard managers build history by watching the clipboard in the background. Without one, overwriting your clipboard means the previous item is gone permanently.
Read: How to access clipboard history on Mac →The content formats a clipboard manager can record: plain text, rich text, images, URLs, hex colors, and file references. Not every manager handles every type.
macOS 26's built-in history supports text only. Pastery and Paste record all major types. Maccy focuses on text with basic image storage but no visual preview.
Read: Complete guide to Mac clipboard managers →A Mac app that records clipboard history, lets you search and browse past copies, and paste any previous item with a keyboard shortcut. Runs quietly in the background from the menu bar.
Clipboard managers solve the problem that macOS only remembers one copied item at a time. They range from free text-only lists (Maccy) to visual apps with OCR search (Pastery).
Read: Which clipboard manager should you use? →How long clipboard history is kept before items are automatically deleted. Retention policies vary widely between built-in OS features and third-party apps.
macOS 26 built-in history keeps text for up to 7 days. Raycast retains roughly 3 months. Maccy and Pastery keep items until you clear history manually.
Read: macOS 26 clipboard history review →Full-text search across all stored clipboard items. Type a query and matching clips surface instantly, usually ranked by recency.
Basic search matches clip text only. Advanced search also matches OCR-extracted text inside screenshots and can be combined with filters by app or date range.
Read: Search inside screenshots on Mac →A chronological view of clipboard history, usually grouped by day. Items appear in the order they were copied, newest first.
Visual clipboard managers render the timeline as a grid of typed cards. Minimal managers show a flat reverse-chronological text list in a menu bar dropdown.
Read: Pastery vs. Paste (visual timelines compared) →Syncing clipboard history across Mac, iPhone, and iPad via Apple's iCloud infrastructure. Copy on one device, access the clip on another.
Paste app is the main clipboard manager that offers iCloud sync and Pinboards across the Apple ecosystem. Pastery and Maccy are Mac-only with no cross-device sync.
Read: Paste app review →A clipboard manager that stores all history on your Mac with no cloud sync, no account, and no server connection. Clipboard data never leaves the device.
Maccy and Pastery are local-only. Paste syncs via iCloud. Raycast stores clipboard locally but connects to its own servers for AI and extension features.
Read: Which clipboard manager should you use? →A clipboard manager that lives in the macOS menu bar and opens history from a compact dropdown panel. Low footprint, fast to access, minimal screen space.
Maccy is the canonical menu bar clipboard manager — a searchable text list with almost no UI chrome. Pastery also runs from the menu bar but adds a full-window Overview Mode.
Read: Pastery vs. Maccy →Searching clipboard history by text that appears inside screenshots, not just filenames or clip metadata. Requires optical character recognition at copy time.
Without OCR, finding an old screenshot means scrolling thumbnails and hoping you recognise the right image. With OCR, you type the error message or URL you remember and the image surfaces immediately.
Read: How to search inside screenshots on Mac →Pastery's full-window clipboard browser. Opens with a keyboard shortcut and shows your entire history as a visual grid of typed cards.
A sidebar filters by content type (image, text, link, color, file), source application, and date range. Designed for retrieval — finding something from days ago — not just re-pasting the last few items.
Read: How to access clipboard history on Mac →A safety feature where the clipboard manager detects when a password manager clears the clipboard after autofill and skips recording that item.
Without this, passwords copied by 1Password, Bitwarden, or similar tools could end up in searchable clipboard history. All reputable clipboard managers implement some form of this detection.
Read: Why Mac only remembers one clipboard item →Permanent named collections of clipboard items in Paste app. Clips added to a pinboard do not expire when new copies arrive — they survive independently of the rolling clipboard history.
Pinboards are used for templates, client contact details, code snippets you reuse weekly, or any clip that should never scroll out of reach. Neither Pastery nor Maccy offers an equivalent feature.
Read: Paste app review →A filter that narrows clipboard history to items copied from a specific application. Useful when you remember the source app but not the exact content or date.
Pastery's Overview Mode sidebar includes per-app filters — show only clips from Slack, VS Code, Figma, or any app that appeared in your copy history. Raycast and Maccy do not offer this.
Read: Best clipboard manager for Mac developers →macOS's built-in clipboard — a single in-memory slot that holds only the most recently copied item. Copying something new silently replaces the previous item.
The system clipboard has worked this way since the original Mac in 1984. macOS 26 added a limited text history in Spotlight, but the underlying single-slot model is unchanged.
Read: Why Mac only remembers one clipboard item →Clipboard history that records plain text copies but not images, files, or colors. Simpler to implement and lighter on storage than full multimedia history.
macOS 26's built-in Spotlight history is text-only with a 7-day limit. Maccy handles text as its primary use case. If you copy screenshots regularly, text-only history is not enough.
Read: macOS 26 clipboard history review →One-click modifications applied to a text clip before it is pasted. Common transforms include format JSON, minify JSON, decode URL encoding, change letter case, and trim whitespace.
The modified text is pasted into your target app; the original clip stays unchanged in history. Pastery applies transforms inline without opening a separate tool or browser tab.
Read: How to format JSON before pasting on Mac →A clipboard manager that renders each item as a typed visual card — screenshot thumbnails, link previews with favicons, color swatches, and formatted text excerpts.
Visual managers make it faster to identify the right clip without reading every line of text. Pastery and Paste are the main visual options; Maccy is intentionally text-only and minimal.
Read: Pastery vs. Paste →