Maccy
Lightweight clipboard manager for macOS
Install with Homebrew
brew install --cask maccy
Maccy — Official Website
Quick Take: Maccy
Maccy is the clipboard manager macOS should ship with. It's fast, free under MIT from GitHub/Homebrew, private by design and focused on searchable local history. The 2.7.0 preview/OCR/HEX upgrades make image-heavy clipboard work much more usable without turning the app into a subscription suite. The App Store $9.99 build is optional support, not a feature gate. The only reasons it isn't perfect are the missing snippet folders/tags, default clear-on-quit behavior that trips newcomers and occasional website version-number drift versus GitHub. Install it, enable persistent history, learn ⌃Space preview and stop losing copies.
Best For
- •Developers who copy code, commands, and IDs constantly
- •Anyone frustrated by macOS's single-item clipboard
- •Privacy-conscious users who want local-only clipboard history
- •Designers who need image preview, HEX swatches, and OCR text extraction
- •Power users who want a free alternative to Paste, Pastebot, or Raycast-only clipboard history
What is Maccy?
Every developer has the same experience at some point: you copy something, then copy something else and the first thing is gone forever. macOS has a clipboard that holds exactly one item. One. In 2026, when you're juggling API keys, SQL queries, terminal commands, JSON snippets and Slack messages across a dozen windows, a single-item clipboard is a genuine productivity bottleneck. Maccy fixes this with a dead-simple approach: it watches your clipboard and keeps a history of everything you copy. Press Shift+Command+C (or whatever shortcut you set) and a small popup appears near your cursor with your recent copies. Start typing to filter. Hit Enter to paste. That's the entire interaction model. No sidebar, no floating window, no subscription, no account. Built by developer Alex Pavlov and released under the MIT license, Maccy is a native macOS app written in Swift that lives in your menu bar. It stores clipboard history locally, nothing touches a server, nothing syncs to a cloud, nothing gets analyzed. The app uses roughly tens of megabytes of RAM and near-zero CPU when idle. It supports text, images, file references and rich text with formatting. The latest GitHub release is 2.7.0 (2026-07-28), which redesigned the image/text preview slideout (⌃Space), added OCR text copy from images, a HEX color swatch toggle, image dimension display and memory/performance improvements. Note: maccyapp.com may still list a stale 2.7.3 build number, trust GitHub's 2.7.0 tag as the current latest release. What makes Maccy stand apart from paid alternatives like Paste (subscription) or Pastebot is its philosophy: a clipboard manager should be invisible until you need it, fast when you use it and gone when you're done. No tutorials, no onboarding flow, no cloud lock-in. You install it, set your shortcut and forget it exists until you need that UUID you copied three hours ago.
Deep dive: Why Developers Prefer Maccy Over Paid Alternatives
The clipboard manager market on macOS is oddly crowded for such a simple concept. Paste wants a subscription. Pastebot and others charge for dense feature sets. CopyClip is free but barely functional. Maccy occupies the sweet spot: genuinely free from GitHub/Homebrew, genuinely fast and genuinely private.
History & Background
Maccy was created by Alex Pavlov and first released in 2018. It started as a straightforward Swift app that watched the clipboard and presented history in a popup. Over the years it gained fuzzy search, pinned items, regex support and OCR. Version 2.4.0 added OCR search in images; 2.6.0 (2025-11-21) brought macOS 26 Tahoe UI updates; 2.7.0 (2026-07-28) redesigned preview, OCR text copy, HEX swatches, image dimensions and memory/performance work. Throughout, the project stayed focused: do one thing, do it fast, don't add cloud bloat.
How It Works
Maccy is written in Swift and uses AppKit for its UI, no Electron, no web views. Clipboard monitoring uses macOS's NSPasteboard API. Items live in a local SQLite database that stays compact even with thousands of entries. Search combines string matching and fuzzy algorithms that remain snappy because the dataset is small enough to scan quickly. Image previews and OCR run as needed rather than forcing a cloud round-trip. The app's memory footprint stays modest because it loads preview assets lazily.
Ecosystem & Integrations
Maccy lives beside Rectangle, Shottr, Raycast, Paste, Pastebot and CopyClip. Many developers install Maccy as permanent infrastructure because it stays minimal, it doesn't try to be a launcher, a full snippet manager or a notes app. Optional App Store and Setapp distribution fund development without changing the MIT GitHub feature set.
Future Development
Development follows compatibility and quality-of-life work more than feature sprawl. Expect continued Tahoe polish, preview/OCR refinements and performance passes like 2.7.0 rather than a pivot into subscription sync SaaS. That discipline is why Maccy remains fast and trusted.
Key Features
Keyboard-First Design
Maccy is built around the keyboard. You trigger it with a global hotkey (default: Shift+Command+C), search by typing immediately, no need to click a search field and select with arrow keys or by pressing the number next to each item. The whole interaction takes under a second. You never touch the mouse. This matters because the entire point of a clipboard manager is speed. If it takes longer to find a previous copy than it would to re-copy it, the tool fails. Maccy passes this test every time.
Search with Fuzzy Matching and Regex
When Maccy's popup appears, just start typing. The list filters in real time. Fuzzy matching means you don't need exact text, typing 'usr lcl' will find '/usr/local/bin'. For developers who need precision, regex search is available too. If you copied a phone number three days ago and remember it started with 415, type '415' and it appears instantly. The search works across text and, with OCR features, text found in images.
Pinned Items with Keyboard Shortcuts
Some things you paste constantly: your email address, a standard code review comment, a SQL snippet you run daily, a canned Slack response. Maccy lets you pin these items so they always appear at the top of your history, regardless of what else you copy. You can also assign individual keyboard shortcuts to pinned items, turning them into instant-paste buttons. Pin your five most-used snippets, assign them to Option+1 through Option+5 and you have a lightweight text expander built into your clipboard manager.
Ignore Specific Apps
Maccy automatically ignores passwords from 1Password, Bitwarden and other password managers, it detects the concealed clipboard flag these apps set. Beyond that, you can manually blacklist any app. If you use a banking app or a secure messaging tool, add it to Maccy's ignore list and nothing from that app gets recorded. This isn't buried in settings, it's right in Preferences under Ignored Apps, one click to add.
Image Preview, OCR and Rich Text History
Maccy doesn't just store plain text. Screenshots, copied images from Figma, HEIC photos, rich text with formatting, it captures all of it. Version 2.7.0 redesigned the image/text preview slideout (⌃Space), shows image dimensions and can copy OCR-recognized text out of images. Earlier 2.4.0 work added OCR search in images; 2.7.0 makes preview and OCR extraction a first-class daily workflow. HEX color swatches can be toggled for design-friendly clipboard review.
Paste as Plain Text
One of the most common clipboard frustrations: you copy text from a webpage and paste it into a document and it brings along the font, size, color and background. Maccy has a paste-as-plain-text option that strips all formatting. You can make this the default behavior in preferences so every paste from Maccy comes through as clean, unformatted text. This alone saves enough daily frustration to justify installing the app.
Configurable History Size
By default, Maccy keeps your last 200 copied items. You can increase this to thousands if you want a deep history or reduce it if you prefer a lean list. History can be set to persist across app restarts (it doesn't by default) or clear automatically when you quit the app. The storage footprint stays small either way, even with 1000 text items, Maccy's database is typically under a megabyte. Release 2.7.0 also tightened memory and performance for heavier histories.
Native macOS Look and Feel
Maccy's popup looks like it belongs in macOS. Version 2.6.0 (2025-11-21) updated the UI for macOS 26 Tahoe. It follows system appearance (dark mode, light mode, accent colors), uses native text rendering and respects macOS accessibility settings. There's no custom window chrome, no branded splash screen, no settings panel that looks like it was designed for a different operating system. It feels like a feature Apple forgot to build into macOS.
Who Should Use Maccy?
1The Backend Developer
You're debugging a production issue. In the last ten minutes, you've copied a stack trace from Datadog, a user ID from the database, an API endpoint from Postman, a curl command from the documentation and a JSON payload from the logs. Without Maccy, you'd have to go back to each source to re-copy these values. With Maccy, you press Shift+Command+C, type 'curl' to find the command, paste it, then pull up the user ID the same way. Your clipboard history becomes a working memory buffer for your debugging session.
2The Technical Writer
Writing documentation means constantly copying class names, method signatures, error messages and code examples from the codebase. You're also pulling quotes from Slack conversations and links from Jira tickets. Maccy's search lets you find any of these by typing a fragment. The pin feature lets you keep commonly-referenced class names at the top. Paste-as-plain-text ensures that code snippets don't carry unwanted formatting into your Markdown files.
3The Designer Moving Between Tools
Your workflow involves Figma, Photoshop and a browser. You copy hex color codes, asset names, icon SVGs and client feedback text throughout the day. Maccy stores all of it, including images. With 2.7.0 preview, HEX swatches, image dimensions and OCR text copy, you can identify an asset visually and extract text from a screenshot without retyping. When the client asks what blue you used on the header, search history instead of hunting Figma layers.
4The Customer Support Engineer
You handle 30 tickets a day and paste the same troubleshooting steps, documentation links and canned responses repeatedly. Pin your top 10 responses in Maccy with keyboard shortcuts assigned to each. Option+1 pastes the reset instructions, Option+2 pastes the upgrade guide link, Option+3 pastes the log collection command. You've just built a free, instant response system without subscribing to a text expansion service.
5The Student Researching
You're writing a paper and copying quotes, citations, URLs and data points from a dozen PDFs and web pages. Without a clipboard manager, you'd have a separate document open just for collecting snippets. With Maccy, everything you copy during your research session is automatically saved and searchable. When you need that statistic from the third paper you read, type a keyword and it's there, OCR helps when the quote only exists inside a screenshot.
How to Install Maccy on Mac
Maccy requires macOS 14 Sonoma or newer and ships as a universal Apple Silicon + Intel binary. Install free via Homebrew/GitHub, optionally buy the Mac App Store tip build or get it on Setapp.
Install via Homebrew
Open Terminal and run brew install --cask maccy (or follow the formula on brew.sh). This downloads the free MIT build from the open-source distribution path. Prefer GitHub Releases when you want the exact 2.7.0 tag.
Grant Accessibility Permission
On first launch, macOS asks you to grant Maccy Accessibility permission in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility. This is required for Maccy to read your clipboard. Without it, the app can't function.
Set Your Preferred Shortcut
Click the Maccy icon in your menu bar, open Preferences and set your activation shortcut. The default is Shift+Command+C. If that conflicts with another app, change it to something like Control+Space or Option+V. Use ⌃Space inside the popup for the 2.7 preview slideout.
Configure Launch at Login
In Preferences, enable Launch at Login so Maccy starts automatically when you boot your Mac. Without this, you'd need to manually launch it each time and any copies made before launching won't be captured.
Pro Tips
- • GitHub/Homebrew builds are free forever under MIT. The Mac App Store $9.99 version is an optional tip/support purchase, not a different feature set.
- • If maccyapp.com shows 2.7.3 while GitHub's latest tag is 2.7.0, trust the GitHub release page.
- • If you're migrating from Paste or Pastebot, there's no import feature. Just start fresh, your history builds up fast.
- • Add Maccy to Login Items in System Settings if the built-in Launch at Login option doesn't stick after macOS updates.
Configuration Tips
Enable Persistent History
By default, Maccy clears your history when the app quits. Open Preferences and uncheck Clear history on quit to keep your clipboard history across restarts. This is the first setting most users change.
Use the 2.7 Preview Slideout
With an item selected, press ⌃Space to open the redesigned image/text preview. From there you can inspect dimensions, toggle HEX color swatches and copy OCR text from images without leaving the clipboard popup.
Set Paste as Plain Text by Default
In Preferences, enable paste without formatting as the default behavior. This saves you from pasting styled text from web pages into your code editor or documents. You can still paste with formatting on demand using a modifier key.
Increase History Size for Deep Work
The default 200-item history is fine for casual use. If you're doing research, debugging or any work that involves heavy clipboard usage over days, increase it to 500 or 1000. Storage cost stays small; 2.7.0's memory work helps heavier lists feel snappier.
Blacklist Sensitive Apps
Go to Preferences → Ignored Apps and add any application that handles sensitive data: banking apps, cryptocurrency wallets, secure email clients. Maccy already ignores password manager copies automatically, but adding extra apps gives you peace of mind.
Use Pin Shortcuts as a Text Expander
Pin your 5-10 most frequently pasted items (email signatures, code snippets, standard responses) and assign each a keyboard shortcut. This turns Maccy into a lightweight text expansion tool without installing another app.
Alternatives to Maccy
The clipboard manager space on macOS has a few notable options:
Paste
Paste has a polished visual timeline and iCloud sync across devices, sold as a subscription. Compared to Maccy, it's prettier but usually slower for pure keyboard retrieval. Choose Paste if you want cross-device sync and a visual clipboard; choose Maccy if you want local-only speed without a subscription.
Pastebot
Pastebot is a long-standing paid clipboard utility with filters, workspaces and automation hooks. It is more feature-dense than Maccy. Choose Pastebot for power-user workflows; choose Maccy when you want a free MIT clipboard history that stays out of the way.
CopyClip / CopyClip 2
CopyClip is a free, bare-bones clipboard history that lives in your menu bar. It stores plain text only, no images, no rich text, no OCR preview workflow. Maccy's search, pinning, image preview and OCR make it the stronger free option for anyone who copies more than plain text.
Raycast Clipboard History
Raycast includes clipboard history as one of its many features. If you already use Raycast as your launcher, the built-in clipboard history might be enough. Maccy's dedicated popup is often faster to invoke for clipboard-only tasks and pinned item shortcuts remain a Maccy strength.
Pricing
Maccy is open source under the MIT license. Direct download from GitHub and Homebrew is free forever with no Pro feature gates. The Mac App Store listing is a $9.99 one-time tip/support version that funds development; functionally it matches the free GitHub build rather than unlocking a separate premium tier. Maccy is also available on Setapp. There are no subscriptions, no ads and no in-app purchases on the direct download. Competitors like Paste charge ongoing subscription fees for comparable clipboard history; Maccy keeps the core experience free.
Pros
- ✓Genuinely fast, popup appears quickly, search filters instantly
- ✓Keyboard-first design means you never need the mouse
- ✓Fuzzy search and regex support for finding items in large histories
- ✓Open-source (MIT license) with transparent, auditable code
- ✓Zero cloud sync by design, all data stays local on your Mac
- ✓Automatically ignores passwords from 1Password, Bitwarden and similar
- ✓2.7 preview slideout, OCR text copy, HEX swatches and image dimensions
- ✓Pinned items with custom shortcuts work as a free text expander
- ✓Paste-as-plain-text strips unwanted formatting
- ✓Tiny resource footprint with ongoing memory/performance work in 2.7.0
Cons
- ✗macOS only, no Windows or Linux version
- ✗No cloud sync by design (privacy tradeoff for multi-Mac users)
- ✗Requires macOS Sonoma 14 or newer, excluding older Macs
- ✗History clears on quit by default, you must enable persistence in settings
- ✗No snippet organization features (folders, tags, categories)
- ✗Can't edit clipboard items after they're captured
- ✗Website version labels can lag GitHub, easy to misread the latest release
Community & Development
Maccy is maintained by Alex Pavlov on GitHub, where the project has earned a very large star count and an active issue tracker. Bugs get acknowledged and fixed in point releases. Community translations cover many languages and contributors regularly submit pull requests. The Mac App Store $9.99 listing provides optional funding without gating features on the GitHub build. Recent development highlights include 2.6.0 (2025-11-21) macOS 26 Tahoe UI work and 2.7.0 (2026-07-28) preview/OCR upgrades. Users discover Maccy through Reddit, Hacker News and developer blogs, then keep it permanently because local-only clipboard history stays trustworthy.
Video Tutorials
Getting Started with Maccy
More Tutorials
Maccy - Install + tutorial on Mac - Free clipboard history manager for Macbook for easy Copy & Paste
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clipboard manager for MacOS | a MACCY review
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Windows Clipboard for Mac ?
1MinuteCode • 10.1K views
Frequently Asked Questions about Maccy
About the Author
Productivity & Workflow Analyst
Expert Tips for Maccy
Community praise still centers on local-only storage with no cloud clipboard—users treat that as the product, not a missing feature.
August 2026 discussion focuses on the 2.7.0 preview slideout and OCR text-copy upgrades as the practical reason to update, not cosmetic version churn.
The Mac App Store $9.99 purchase is widely understood as optional support funding—not a gated Pro edition separate from the GitHub/Homebrew MIT build.
Related Technologies & Concepts
Related Topics
Clipboard Management
Tools for extending macOS clipboard with history, search, and organization.
macOS Productivity Utilities
Small, focused tools that fill gaps in macOS functionality.
Sources & References
Key Verified Facts
- Official site presents Maccy as a lightweight macOS clipboard manager with local history.[cite-1]
- GitHub repository p0deje/Maccy confirms MIT open-source status and native Swift development.[cite-2]
- GitHub Releases lists 2.7.0 (2026-07-28) as the latest release with redesigned preview, OCR text copy, HEX swatches, image dimensions, and performance work.[cite-3, cite-4]
- Mac App Store listing offers a paid Maccy purchase used as optional developer support.[cite-5]
- Maccy pricing documentation explains free GitHub/Homebrew distribution versus optional paid channels such as the App Store tip model.[cite-6]
- 1Maccy - Lightweight clipboard manager for macOS
Accessed Aug 9, 2026
"Official product site for Maccy downloads, overview, and documentation links."
- 2GitHub - p0deje/Maccy
Accessed Aug 9, 2026
"Open-source repository confirming MIT licensing and native Swift clipboard manager implementation."
- 3Maccy Releases - GitHub
Accessed Aug 9, 2026
"Release index for Maccy version history including 2.6.0 Tahoe UI and 2.7.0 preview/OCR updates."
- 4Maccy 2.7.0 release
Accessed Aug 9, 2026
"Release notes for 2.7.0 (2026-07-28): redesigned preview slideout, OCR text copy, HEX swatches, image dimensions, memory/performance improvements."
- 5Maccy on the Mac App Store
Accessed Aug 9, 2026
"App Store listing for the optional paid Maccy build used to support development."
- 6Maccy pricing 2026
Accessed Aug 9, 2026
"Pricing explanation covering free distribution channels and optional paid support options."
- 7Homebrew
Accessed Aug 9, 2026
"Homebrew package manager homepage; common free install path for Maccy via cask/formula."