The best clipboard managers for Mac in 2026

The ten apps at a glance

Prices are in US dollars unless noted, checked on each maker’s site on 13 October 2026. App Store prices can differ by country.

What we looked at

• Speed of the everyday paste: how many keys it takes to paste last Tuesday’s clip into the app you’re in.
• Privacy: where the history is stored, and whether password-manager copies are skipped.
• What it keeps: text only, or images, files and screenshots too, and whether you can search the text inside images.
• Price and maintenance: one-time or subscription, and whether it’s still being updated for current macOS.

The apps, one by one

Maccy: best free clipboard manager

Maccy is open source (MIT), tiny and fast. Press its shortcut, type to filter, press Return. It stores history on your Mac and ignores items marked concealed, transient or auto-generated by default, so password manager copies stay out. Version 2.7.1 came out in August 2026 and it needs macOS 14 or later. It’s free from its website; the $9.99 App Store version is the same app and supports the developer.

Skip it if you want pins in folders, image search or sync.

Raycast: best if you also want a launcher

Raycast replaces Spotlight with a launcher, and its clipboard history comes free: text, images, files, links and colors, with search that can find text in images. The free plan keeps up to 3 months of history; Pro ($10 a month or $96 a year) lets you keep 6 months, a year or everything. Apps like Passwords and Keychain Access are excluded by default.

Skip it if you don’t want a whole launcher just for clipboard history.

Paste: best for syncing across Apple devices

Paste shows your history as a strip of visual cards and lets you save clips to Pinboards. Its big draw is iCloud sync across Mac, iPhone, iPad and Vision Pro. It’s a subscription: $2.49 a month or $29.99 a year on its website (the App Store lists different plans, including a Lifetime option), with a 7-day trial, and it’s also in Setapp. Version 7 shipped in October 2026.

Skip it if you don’t want another subscription or don’t need sync.

Alfred Powerpack: best if you already use Alfred

Alfred’s clipboard history needs the Powerpack (£34 for the current license, or £59 for lifetime upgrades). You choose to keep history for 24 hours, 7 days, a month or 3 months, and it ignores Keychain, 1Password and password fields by default.

ClipBook: best one-time purchase for privacy

ClipBook keeps everything local, masks passwords, API keys and card numbers, recognizes text in images and can hide itself from screen sharing. It has 78 text transforms and is open source. It was $9.99 one-time for one Mac when we checked, and the maker says the price goes up to $14.99 in October 2026, so check before you buy.

Pastebot: best for power users on the newest macOS

Tapbots’ Pastebot 3 adds filters (transform text as you paste), pastebins and Shortcuts support, with iCloud sync between Macs. It now requires macOS 26 Tahoe or later. Buy it direct for $39 with a year of updates, or subscribe on the App Store.

PastePal, CopyClip and Clipy

• PastePal ($14.99 one-time) docks a window to the edge of your screen, with a paste queue and 50+ transforms; the App Store version syncs with iPhone through iCloud.
• CopyClip (free) and CopyClip 2 ($7.99) are a simple menu bar list with pinning and app exclusions.
• Clipy (free, open source) pairs history with snippets in the menu bar, and was updated again in October 2026.

NotchDesk: clipboard history and your next meeting, in the notch

This is our app, so read this part with that in mind. NotchDesk keeps a private history of text, links, code, colors, images, files and screenshots on your Mac (100 to 5,000 clips). Press ⌃⌘ V in any app for Quick Paste: type a few letters, press Return, and the clip lands where your cursor was. The Library (⌃⌘ L) finds screenshots by the text in them, recognized on your Mac. It skips concealed copies and anything from 1Password, Bitwarden, Apple Passwords and other password apps, and masks secrets it spots.

What makes it different: the same notch shows your next meeting with a countdown and a one-click Join button (⌃⌘ J from any app), plus a file shelf and small tools. It needs macOS 14 or later and works on Macs without a notch too.

Skip it if you only want a clipboard manager and nothing else: Maccy is free and does that well.

Privacy: what a clipboard manager should never save

A clipboard history holds everything you copy, including things you didn’t mean to keep. Before you install one, check that it:

• skips copies marked concealed by password managers (the org.nspasteboard.ConcealedType convention);
• lets you exclude apps, such as your password manager and banking apps;
• stores history on your Mac, or only in your own iCloud, rather than on the developer’s servers;
• lets you clear history and set how long items are kept.

Which one should you pick?

• You just want it to work, for free: Maccy.
• You want a launcher and clipboard in one: Raycast.
• You copy on your iPhone and paste on your Mac all day: Paste.
• You hate subscriptions: ClipBook, PastePal or Pastebot’s direct license.
• You live in video calls: NotchDesk, which puts the clipboard and your next meeting one hover away.
• You only need the last few days, on macOS 26 or later: Spotlight’s built-in history. See how to use it.

Questions people ask

What is the best free clipboard manager for Mac?

Maccy is the best free, dedicated clipboard manager: open source, light and keyboard-driven, for macOS 14 and later. Raycast’s clipboard history is also free and keeps up to 3 months of history if you already use Raycast as a launcher.

Do I still need a clipboard manager on macOS Tahoe or macOS 27?

Not always. Spotlight keeps up to 7 days of clipboard history. A clipboard manager adds pins, longer history, pasting straight into the app you’re in, search inside images and, for some, sync.

Is it safe to use a clipboard manager with a password manager?

Yes, if the clipboard manager respects the concealed marker password managers add to their copies. Maccy, Paste, Raycast, Alfred, ClipBook and NotchDesk all skip or exclude password copies by default; check the settings of any app you install.

Which Mac clipboard managers sync with iPhone?

Paste syncs across Mac, iPhone, iPad and Vision Pro through iCloud. PastePal’s App Store version also syncs through iCloud. Most others, including Maccy, Raycast and ClipBook, keep history on one Mac.

Which clipboard manager can search text inside screenshots?

Raycast (with its image text search), ClipBook and NotchDesk recognize text in images so you can find a screenshot by the words in it. NotchDesk does it on your Mac with Apple’s Vision framework.

Sources

• Paste pricing
• Maccy
• Maccy releases on GitHub
• Raycast pricing
• Raycast manual: Clipboard History
• Alfred Powerpack shop
• Alfred help: Clipboard History
• ClipBook
• Pastebot by Tapbots
• PastePal
• CopyClip 2 on the Mac App Store
• Clipy releases on GitHub
• Apple: Search your clipboard history on Mac

We make NotchDesk, so we have a stake in this topic. We’ve tried to be fair to every app mentioned, and checked prices and features on each maker’s own site on the date above. Spotted something out of date? Email hello@notchdesk.com and we’ll fix it.