Maccy vs Paste vs NotchDesk: Mac clipboard manager comparison (2026)

Short answer

Pick Maccy if you want a free, open-source clipboard history that stays on one Mac. Pick Paste if you copy on your iPhone or iPad and paste on your Mac: it syncs through iCloud, for $29.99 a year. Pick NotchDesk (our app) if you want clipboard history, search inside screenshots and a countdown to your next meeting in the MacBook notch. All three need macOS 14 or later.

Maccy vs Paste vs NotchDesk at a glance

Prices are in US dollars, checked on each maker’s site and the Mac App Store on 16 October 2026. We make NotchDesk, so read its column with that in mind. For seven more apps, see The best clipboard managers for Mac in 2026.

Feature	Maccy	Paste	NotchDesk
Price	Free from its website; $9.99 on the Mac App Store	$2.49/month or $29.99/year; 7-day trial	14-day trial; first 100 buyers $25 lifetime (1 Mac) or $49 (3 Macs), then $9/month or $89/year
Open source	Yes (MIT)	No	No
Sync	No, stored on your Mac	iCloud: Mac, iPhone, iPad	Optional, between Macs, through your own iCloud Drive
Search	Type to filter	Filter by type, app, device or date	By words, app or type
Text in images	Not mentioned	Yes (Power Search)	Yes, recognized on your Mac
Pinning	⌥P pins to the top	Pinboards	⌘P pins; your own categories
Plain-text paste	⌥⇧ Return	Hold Shift while pasting	⌃⌘⇧V in any app; always-plain apps
Password copies	Concealed, transient and auto-generated copies ignored	Rules skip passwords; block apps	Marked copies ignored; password apps excluded
Open with	⇧⌘C or menu bar icon	⇧⌘V or menu bar icon	⌃⌘V, the notch or the menu bar
macOS	14 Sonoma or later	14 or later (App Store listing)	14 or later

Price and open source

Maccy is free and open source under the MIT license, and its site says it always will be. The $9.99 Mac App Store version is the same app, sold to support development.

Paste is a subscription: $2.49 a month or $29.99 a year on its website, with a 7-day trial, and every plan covers Mac, iPhone and iPad. The App Store lists its own plans, including $3.99 a month and a $99.99 Lifetime plan. Paste for Mac is also included in Setapp.

NotchDesk has a 14-day trial with everything included. The first 100 buyers get a lifetime license for $25 (one Mac) or $49 (three Macs). After that it’s $9 a month or $89 a year, on up to three Macs. It isn’t open source.

Sync between devices

This is the clearest difference. Paste keeps your history and Pinboards in step across Mac, iPhone and iPad through iCloud, and says your data stays on your devices and in your private iCloud. If you copy on your phone and paste on your Mac every day, that settles it.

Maccy doesn’t sync: everything is stored on your computer. NotchDesk has no iPhone app, but it can share text, links, code, colors and images up to 10 MB between your Macs through your own iCloud Drive. Sync is off until you turn it on.

Search, including text in screenshots

All three let you start typing to find a clip. Maccy keeps it simple: open it, type, press Return. Paste can narrow results by content type, app, device or date.

Image search is where Maccy falls behind. Paste’s Power Search reads the text in screenshots, documents and photos and highlights the match. NotchDesk recognizes text in images and screenshots on your Mac with Apple’s Vision framework, so searching “gate 22” finds the boarding pass. Neither Maccy’s site nor its README mentions this. Our guide to searching text in screenshots on a Mac covers the built-in options too.

Pinning and favourites

Maccy: press ⌥ P to pin an item. It moves to the top and gets a permanent shortcut.
Paste: drag clips onto Pinboards, or choose Pin from a clip’s menu. Pinboard items stay until you remove them, and the Team plan can share pinboards.
NotchDesk: press ⌘ P in Quick Paste. Pinned clips are listed first and never trimmed, and you can make categories like Work or Travel.

Paste as plain text

In Maccy, select a clip and press ⌥⇧ ↩. In Paste, hold Shift while pasting, or choose Paste as Plain Text from the menu. NotchDesk’s ⌃⌘⇧ V pastes whatever is on the clipboard without its fonts and colors, in any app, and an always-plain list (Terminal, Xcode and VS Code to start) gets plain text whenever NotchDesk pastes for you. For app-by-app tips, see how to paste without formatting on a Mac.

Privacy and passwords

Password managers mark their copies with pasteboard types such as org.nspasteboard.ConcealedType and org.nspasteboard.TransientType so clipboard managers know to skip them.

Maccy always ignores the concealed, transient and auto-generated types, and you can add your own.
Paste has rules that skip passwords and other sensitive content, and Settings → Privacy lets you block apps such as password managers. Its site doesn’t list which pasteboard types it honors.
NotchDesk ignores concealed, transient and auto-generated copies, and excludes 1Password, Bitwarden, Apple Passwords, Keychain Access and other password apps by default. It also masks card numbers, one-time codes and API keys it spots, then deletes them after 10 minutes unless you pin them.

Maccy keeps history on your Mac, and so does NotchDesk unless you turn on sync. Paste keeps it on your devices and in your iCloud.

How you open it

Maccy opens with ⇧⌘ C or its menu bar icon. Paste uses ⇧⌘ V or its menu bar icon. NotchDesk has three ways in: ⌃⌘ V opens Quick Paste over the app you’re using, hovering the notch (or ⌃⌘ B) shows the clipboard shelf, and the menu bar dropdown holds your ten latest clips. ⌃⌘ L opens the Library. On displays without a notch, NotchDesk shows a small island at the top center instead.

All three need macOS 14 or later. If you’re on macOS 26 and only want the last few days, Spotlight’s built-in history may be enough; see how to see your clipboard history on a Mac.

Which one should you pick?

Maccy is the best free pick. Choose it if you want a light, keyboard-driven history and don’t need sync or image search.
Paste is best for iPhone and iPad sync. Choose it if you move text between devices all day and don’t mind a subscription.
NotchDesk is for people who live in their calendar and video calls. You get clipboard history with screenshot search, plus your next meeting with a countdown and a Join button, in the notch.

We make NotchDesk, so weigh this accordingly. Skip NotchDesk if you only want a clipboard manager: Maccy is free and does that well. Skip it too if you need your history on your iPhone; that’s Paste. The full list of clipboard features is on the features page.

Questions people ask

Is Maccy better than Paste?

Maccy is free, open source and keeps your history on one Mac. Paste costs $2.49 a month or $29.99 a year, but syncs with iPhone and iPad through iCloud, saves clips to Pinboards and can search the text inside images.

What is the best free alternative to Paste?

Maccy. It’s free from its website, open source under the MIT license, and runs on macOS 14 or later. It doesn’t sync or search inside images, which are the main things you give up.

Does Maccy sync between Macs or with iPhone?

No. Maccy says everything is stored on your computer. If you need your history on an iPhone or iPad, Paste is the one of these three that does it.

Can Maccy search text in screenshots?

Maccy’s website and README don’t mention it, so don’t count on it. Paste’s Power Search and NotchDesk both recognize text in images, so you can find a screenshot by a word in it.

Do Maccy, Paste and NotchDesk save passwords?

Not by default. Maccy ignores copies marked concealed, transient or auto-generated. Paste has rules that skip passwords and lets you block apps such as password managers. NotchDesk ignores the same marked copies and excludes 1Password, Bitwarden, Apple Passwords and other password apps out of the box.

Does NotchDesk sync with iPhone?

No. NotchDesk is Mac-only. Its optional sync shares clips between your Macs through your own iCloud Drive, and secret, expiring and file clips never leave the Mac they were copied on.

Sources

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.