📋 Recopy

A native macOS menu bar app that remembers everything you copy.
Lightweight clipboard manager built entirely with system frameworks.

No account. No subscription. No telemetry. Just your clipboard.

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Why Recopy?

	Paste	Maccy	macOS Built-in	Recopy
Price	$30	Free	N/A	Free
Menu bar native	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Search history	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Full-fidelity images	Yes	No	No	Yes
Rich text paste	Yes	No	No	Yes
Pin clips	Yes	No	No	Yes
Excluded apps	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Source app tracking	No	No	No	Yes
Keyboard navigation	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Zero dependencies	No	No	Yes	Yes
Open source	No	Yes	No	Yes

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Features

Clipboard Monitoring

• Automatic capture -- Starts monitoring at launch, no interaction required. Polls the system pasteboard every 0.5s using only public APIs
• Text, images, rich text -- Captures plain text, RTF formatting, and PNG/TIFF images at full fidelity
• Smart deduplication -- Recopying the most recent text updates its timestamp instead of creating a duplicate
• Source app tracking -- Records which app each clip was copied from, with icon and name
• Self-capture suppression -- The app's own pasteboard writes (paste/copy actions) are never re-captured into history

Menu Bar Popover

• Instant access -- Click the menu bar icon or press ⌘⇧V globally to toggle the popover
• Real-time search -- Filter clips instantly by substring match
• Pinned section -- Pin important clips to the top of the list
• Timestamps -- Relative time ("3 min ago") and clock time on every entry, plus source app name
• Single-click paste -- Click a clip to paste it directly into the frontmost app via ⌘V simulation
• Context menu -- Right-click for Copy, Pin/Unpin, and Delete
• Liquid glass design -- NSVisualEffectView vibrancy, glassy cards, smooth hover animations

Keyboard Navigation

• Arrow keys -- Move selection up/down through the clip list
• Return -- Paste the selected clip into the frontmost app
• Backspace -- Delete the selected clip (edits search when search has text)
• Escape -- Clear search text, or close the popover
• Typing -- Automatically enters the search field

Privacy & Security

• Password manager exclusion -- Auto-skips clips from 1Password, KeePassXC, and other vaults
• Concealed content -- Respects org.nspasteboard.ConcealedType for sensitive fields
• Excluded apps list -- Add any app's bundle ID prefix to block clipboard capture
• Fully offline -- Zero network calls, ever

Settings

• History limit -- Keep 50 to 1,000 clips (default 200), auto-prunes oldest non-pinned
• Launch at login -- Native SMAppService integration
• Sound on copy -- Optional audio feedback when a clip is captured
• Global hotkey -- ⌘⇧V to toggle the popover from anywhere
• Clear all history -- Inline confirmation, preserves pinned clips

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Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
⌘⇧V	Toggle clipboard history popover
↑ ↓	Navigate clip list
↵	Paste selected clip
⌫	Delete selected clip / edit search
⎋	Clear search / close popover
Click	Paste clip into frontmost app
Right-click	Context menu (Copy, Pin, Delete)

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Installation

Build from Source

git clone https://github.com/huntermeherin/cliphist.git
cd cliphist/Recopy
xcodebuild -scheme Recopy -configuration Release build

Open in Xcode

cd cliphist/Recopy
open Recopy.xcodeproj
# Set signing to "Sign to Run Locally"
# Build and run (Cmd+R)

Requirements

• macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later
• Xcode 15+ (for building)
• Accessibility permission (for paste simulation -- prompted on first use)

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Architecture

Recopy/Recopy/
  RecopyApp.swift                App entry + AppDelegate (NSStatusItem + NSPopover)
  Models/
    ClipItem.swift               SwiftData model with full-fidelity image storage
  Services/
    ClipboardMonitor.swift       NSPasteboard polling, dedup, pruning, self-suppression
    PasteService.swift           Pasteboard write + CGEvent ⌘V simulation
    HotkeyManager.swift          Global ⌘⇧V via NSEvent monitors
    AppDetector.swift            Frontmost app detection + icon resolution
  Views/
    ClipboardPopoverView.swift   Main popover with keyboard handling + vibrancy
    ClipRowView.swift            Clip row with glassy hover/selection states
    SearchBar.swift              Glass-styled search input
    SettingsView.swift           Card-based preferences panel
  Utilities/
    TimeFormatter.swift          Relative date strings
    ImageUtils.swift             Background-safe thumbnail compression

graph TD
    A[AppDelegate] --> B[NSStatusItem]
    A --> C[NSPopover]
    A --> D[ClipboardMonitor]
    A --> E[HotkeyManager]
    D --> F[NSPasteboard Polling]
    D --> G[SwiftData Store]
    C --> H[ClipboardPopoverView]
    H --> I[SearchBar]
    H --> J[ClipRowView]
    H --> K[SettingsView]
    J -->|Click/Enter| L[PasteService]
    L --> M[CGEvent ⌘V]
    E -->|⌘⇧V| C

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Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
UI Framework	SwiftUI + AppKit
Data Persistence	SwiftData
Clipboard	NSPasteboard
Paste Simulation	CGEvent (Accessibility API)
Global Hotkey	NSEvent (global + local monitors)
Launch at Login	SMAppService
Image Processing	NSBitmapImageRep (background thread)
Vibrancy	NSVisualEffectView

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Privacy

Recopy makes zero network calls. All clipboard data is stored locally in a SwiftData database on your Mac. No accounts, no analytics, no tracking. Your data never leaves your machine.

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Contributing

Pull requests welcome. Please open an issue first to discuss larger changes.

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License

MIT -- free for personal and commercial use.

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_{Built with Swift, SwiftUI, and AppKit. Zero dependencies. No compromises.}