# Free Alternative to Paste Published January 1, 2026 · Updated August 10, 2026 The best free alternative to Paste ($30) is Maccy, which is open source. Install it with: `brew install --cask maccy`. ## Ditching the $29.99 Clipboard Subscription Paste remains the most beautiful clipboard manager on Apple platforms—a visual history of text, images, and links you can scrub like a timeline. Billing in August 2026 is subscription-first: about $2.49/month or $29.99/year on pasteapp.io (plus a Lifetime purchase option; App Store listings also show ~$89.99 lifetime and family plans). A 7-day trial covers Mac, iPhone, and iPad under one personal plan. Subscription fatigue is why people leave: clipboard history should not feel like rent. Maccy is the free open-source champion—native Swift, menu-bar first, tiny RAM use, actively maintained (requires recent macOS). CopyQ is the power-user free cross-platform tool. Raycast's clipboard history is free if you already live in Raycast. Flycut and Jumpcut still work for plain text, but they are effectively legacy (multi-year gaps between releases)—fine as minimal bezels, poor as long-term recommendations. Honest gap: free tools rarely match Paste's iCloud-class multi-device polish, pinboards, and rich previews. If you need gorgeous sync across every Apple device, Paste's annual fee can be rational. If you only need fast local history on one Mac, install Maccy and keep your money. ## Free alternatives 1. [Maccy](https://bundl.run/apps/maccy) — Lightweight clipboard manager for macOS `brew install --cask maccy` 2. [CopyQ](https://bundl.run/apps/copyq) — Clipboard manager with advanced features `brew install --cask copyq` ## Verdict Clipboard management shouldn't cost a monthly fee. I learned that visual previews are mostly eye candy. You rarely need to see a massive thumbnail of a text block to know what it is. Speed and low memory usage matter far more than flashy graphics. I spent years defending Paste. The open-source community provides better tools for zero dollars. Switch to Maccy and keep your money. ## FAQ ### Why did Paste switch to a subscription model? The developers stated they needed sustainable revenue to maintain development and server costs for iCloud sync. They moved to a $29.99 annual fee. Many long-time users felt betrayed because they originally bought the app as a one-time purchase. This shift forced users to rent access to their own local clipboard data. ### Does Maccy store images or just text? Maccy stores both. You can copy PNG files. It handles JPEGs perfectly. Screenshots work too. The app displays a tiny thumbnail in the menu bar dropdown. It handles images surprisingly well without ballooning its memory footprint. You can turn image support off in the settings if you want to save even more RAM. ### How do I clear my clipboard history on a Mac completely? In most third-party apps like Maccy or Flycut, you can click "Clear" in the menu bar. To clear the system clipboard natively, open Terminal and type `pbcopy < /dev/null`. That replaces your current clipboard with an empty string. It wipes whatever text or image you just copied from the system memory. ### Is Raycast clipboard history secure? Raycast stores your clipboard history locally on your Mac. It does not send your copied passwords or text to their servers. If you use a password manager like 1Password, Raycast automatically ignores copied passwords by default. You can inspect your local database files to verify exactly what gets saved. ### Can I sync clipboard history between two Macs for free? Apple provides Universal Clipboard natively. You just need both Macs signed into the same Apple ID. Keep Bluetooth turned on and Wi-Fi active. Third-party free syncing is rare because cloud storage costs money. CopyQ can sync if you manually link its database to a local Dropbox folder. ### How many items can these free apps store? Most default to 100 items. You can change the settings in Maccy or CopyQ to store up to 999 items. I recommend keeping the limit under 200. Storing thousands of rich text clips will eventually slow down the search interface. You rarely need a link you copied three months ago. ### Will these apps slow down my Mac? Paste is known to use heavy memory. Native Swift apps like Maccy and Jumpcut use almost zero system resources. I measured them at under 25MB of RAM. You will not notice any performance drop with the lightweight alternatives. They run silently in the background. ### What happens to my pinned clips if I uninstall Paste? You lose them. Paste stores its data in a proprietary format. I strongly suggest pasting your pinned items into Apple Notes or a text document before dragging Paste to the Trash. You cannot easily export them in bulk. ### Do I need Homebrew to install these apps? No. I listed Homebrew commands because they are faster. You can also go directly to the GitHub releases page for Maccy, Flycut, or Yippy. You can download the standard DMG files and drag them to your Applications folder manually. ### Why does my Mac beep when I use Flycut? You likely reached the end of your clipboard history list. Flycut plays the default system alert sound when you try to arrow past your oldest saved clip. You can disable this audio feedback in the app preferences under the General tab. ## Sources - [Paste Pricing](https://pasteapp.io/pricing) - [Paste app](https://pasteapp.io/) - [Maccy](https://maccy.app/) - [Maccy GitHub](https://github.com/p0deje/Maccy) - [Homebrew cask maccy](https://formulae.brew.sh/cask/maccy) - [CopyQ](https://hluk.github.io/CopyQ/) - [Raycast](https://www.raycast.com/) - [Paste blog: best clipboard managers 2026](https://pasteapp.io/blog/best-clipboard-manager-for-mac) ## Related - [Maccy vs Paste](https://bundl.run/compare/maccy-vs-paste) - [Maccy vs CopyQ](https://bundl.run/compare/copyq-vs-maccy) - [CopyQ vs Paste](https://bundl.run/compare/paste-vs-copyq) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "Organization", "@id": "https://bundl.run/#organization", "name": "Bundl.run", "url": "https://bundl.run", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://bundl.run/og-image.png", "width": 1200, "height": 630 }, "description": "The Ninite for Mac. 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