The best clipboard managers for Mac in 2026

If you copy and paste more than 20 times a day (which is probably an underestimate), the macOS clipboard is your bottleneck. By default it only stores the last thing you copied — every ⌘C overwrites the previous one.

macOS Tahoe (26) added a basic clipboard history through Spotlight, off by default — open Spotlight, press Tab, enable Clipboard. It's enough if you only ever need to re-copy a recent item. If you want it to open at your cursor, paste several things in order, OCR your screenshots, or run on macOS Sonoma or Sequoia, you'll want a clipboard manager.

These are the 6 worth using in 2026.

Quick comparison

1. Maus — the "anti-clipboard manager", clipboard manager

I built it because none of the others convinced me. Maccy lived in the menubar and I had to move my mouse up there every time. Paste was beautiful but a subscription, and it opened a fixed bottom panel. Raycast — only if you already pay for Raycast Pro.

The idea behind Maus is that the clipboard manager comes to you, not the other way around. You hit ⌘⇧V and the window appears right where your cursor is. You find what you need, paste, it's gone. No mouse trip, no fixed panel, no distraction.

The vision: my commitment to anyone using Maus is simple — every day you should be able to be a little more productive. Your time is for impact, and moving information around with copy-paste isn't impact. Maus wants to disappear: open quickly when you need it, then get out of the way again. If it goes from being a tool to being an invisible assistant, it's doing its job.

Use cases where Maus shines in 2026:

• You work with multiple displays. The mouse travels less. The window shows up at your cursor, not in the menubar (which might be two monitors away).
• You work with AI across multiple terminals. You copy output from Claude, Codex, or Cursor in one terminal, paste it in another, copy another fragment, paste it into an editor. Multipaste and autopaste turn that flow into something almost automatic.
• You fill forms or move data between apps. Autopaste (double-tap ⌘) lets you copy everything in one go and paste in order with a single ⌘V.
• You process lists or CSVs. Split turns a pasted list into individual clips — useful for inserting one by one into rows, forms, or tools that don't accept bulk.
• You work with screenshots of documents or whiteboards. Automatic OCR pulls the text without you having to invoke anything — searchable, copyable.

"An unexpected productivity hack." — r/macapps user

What Maus does well:

• Opens where your cursor is (once you try it, you don't go back)
• 100% keyboard-driven, no mouse needed
• Multipaste: ⌘+Click several items, Enter and they paste in order
• Autopaste: double-tap ⌘ to enter listening mode — every copy queues up, and the next ⌘V pastes them in sequence
• Split: turn a list or CSV into individual clips
• OCR: extracts text from screenshots automatically, keeping the original image too
• Captures text, images, links, files, colors
• Fast search by item type (#image, #url…) and source apps (chrome, gpt, claude…). Combine these to find anything.
• 100% local. No cloud, no account, no telemetry of clipboard content
• Native Swift, no Electron. Apple Silicon native

What it doesn't:

• No sync between devices. If you copy on Mac and want it on iPhone, Maus isn't the answer — Paste is
• Not open source
• macOS 14+ only

Price: free with 24h of history. Pro is $12.99 once (no subscription) and adds unlimited history and themes (Dracula, Solarized).

For whom: anyone who copies and pastes a lot on their Mac, values speed, privacy, and clean simple design, and doesn't want yet another subscription.

2. Maccy — the open-source standard

Maccy is probably the most popular clipboard manager on r/macapps and for good reason. Free, open source, lightweight, does the basics very well. If you want free software and a classic menubar dropdown, you don't need to look further.

What it does well:

• Open source and free forever
• Very lightweight
• Fast search
• Pin items
• Maintained for years, not an abandoned project

What it doesn't:

• Lives in the menubar — there's always a mouse trip up there or a shortcut that opens a dropdown far from the cursor
• Only text and images — no OCR, no split, no autopaste, no sequential multipaste
• Functional UX, not especially polished

Price: free, open source.

For whom: open source matters above all, or you want the simplest thing that works without ever paying.

3. Paste — the pretty one with a subscription

If aesthetics matter a lot to you and you need sync between Mac, iPad, and iPhone, it's worth a look.

What it does well:

• Native sync between Mac, iPad, iPhone
• Beautifully polished UI, nice animations
• Pinboards (folders for grouped clips)
• Available in Setapp if you're already subscribed

What it doesn't:

• Subscription ($2.49/mo or $29.99/yr). If you don't like subscriptions, that's a dealbreaker
• Fixed bottom panel — doesn't open at your cursor
• More feature creep than essential features done well

Price: $2.49/mo or $29.99/yr (also available in Setapp and as a lifetime purchase).

For whom: you live in the Apple ecosystem, copy on iPhone and paste on Mac all the time, and aesthetics matter more than price.

4. Raycast Clipboard History — only if you already pay for Raycast Pro

If you already use Raycast as your launcher and pay for Pro, its clipboard history is enough for most people. But the free tier caps at 3 months of history — and most of Raycast's "free" tier nudges you toward upgrading.

What it does well:

• If you're already on Raycast Pro, no extra friction
• Search integrated with the rest of Raycast
• AI features with the Advanced AI add-on (+$8/mo)

What it doesn't:

• Raycast Pro is $10/mo ($8/mo annual). For a single clipboard manager, that's expensive
• If you don't use Raycast, installing it just for clipboard is overkill
• Lives in the center of the screen, not at the cursor
• For "unlimited clipboard" you have to be on Pro — free caps at 3 months

Price: Free with 3 months of history · Pro $10/mo ($8/mo annual) · +$8/mo for Advanced AI.

For whom: you already pay for Raycast Pro for other reasons and clipboard comes as a bonus.

5. PastePal — the standalone alternative

PastePal is a decent standalone option, one-time payment, clean UI. It sits between Paste (more expensive with sync) and Maccy (free and more basic).

What it does well:

• One-time payment, no subscription
• Well-crafted UI
• Fast search

What it doesn't:

• Fewer advanced features (no autopaste, no split, no OCR)
• Less opinionated UX than Maus or Paste
• Smaller community and maintenance footprint

Price: $9.99 one-time.

For whom: you want one-time payment, don't need advanced features, and a nice clipboard history is enough.

6. CopyClip — absolute minimalism

CopyClip is for whoever wants the bare minimum. Lives in the menubar, keeps your history, lets you paste. Done.

What it does well:

• Free
• Almost zero RAM
• Setup in 30 seconds

What it doesn't:

• Nothing more than basic clipboard history
• No powerful search, no pin, no multipaste

Price: free.

For whom: you only want to recover what you copied two minutes ago and nothing else.

Which one to pick by profile

• You want speed and the best UX on Mac → Maus
• Free software above everything → Maccy
• Sync between Mac, iPhone, iPad matters → Paste
• You already pay for Raycast Pro → Raycast Clipboard History
• One-time payment, no advanced features needed → PastePal
• The simplest possible thing for free → CopyClip or Maccy

How this list was made

I've tested all 6 for weeks (some I've been using for years). Prices are official as of May 2026 (verified on pasteapp.io and raycast.com). If you find anything outdated, write to me at manu@mausformac.com and I'll fix it.

And yes, I'm biased toward Maus — I built it. That's why I've tried to be explicit about when not to recommend it (when you need sync, when you want open source, when you're already in Raycast Pro). The goal of this page is to help you choose well, not to push you to download Maus no matter what.