The fast, searchable, menu‑bar clipboard manager for macOS.
Never lose a copied snippet again. ClipboardFox keeps every clip a keystroke away — searchable, persistent, and lighter than your browser tab.
macOS only remembers your last copy. ClipboardFox remembers everything — the snippet of SQL you copied an hour ago, the customer email you grabbed yesterday, the API key you'll wish you hadn't lost.
- Instant. Open the menu bar icon, type, paste. Sub‑second search across thousands of clips.
- Local‑first. Your clipboard never leaves your Mac. No cloud, no telemetry, no account.
- Native. Pure SwiftUI. No Electron, no JavaScript runtime, no 400 MB Helper process.
- Yours. Open source, MIT, and small enough to read in a single sitting.
| Live search | Filter your entire clipboard history as you type. |
| Menu‑bar native | Lives quietly in the menu bar. No dock icon, no clutter. |
| Persistent | History survives reboots, updates, and crashes. |
| Auto‑backup | Every new clip is mirrored to a JSON file you control. |
| Export / Import | Move history between Macs; duplicates merge automatically. |
| Configurable size | Keep anywhere from 10 to 10,000 clips. |
| Launch at login | Optional, one‑click. Uses the modern SMAppService API. |
| Click to paste | Click any entry to copy it back and dismiss the popover. |
| Rebuild in place | Update the binary from the settings panel without leaving the app. |
| Private | 100% local. No network access. No analytics. Ever. |
Grab the universal .dmg from the Releases page, open it, and drag ClipboardFox.app to Applications.
The DMG is built and ad‑hoc signed by GitHub Actions on every tagged release, so you can verify the build provenance directly against this repo.
First launch (important). Because the build is ad‑hoc signed (not notarized by Apple), macOS Gatekeeper marks the downloaded app as quarantined and will say "ClipboardFox is damaged and can't be opened". Strip the quarantine flag once and you're done:
xattr -cr /Applications/ClipboardFox.app
open /Applications/ClipboardFox.appAlternatively, right‑click the app in Finder → Open → confirm. macOS will remember the exemption.
git clone https://github.com/libracoder/clipboardfox.git
cd clipboardfox
./build.sh
open build/ClipboardFox.app./build.sh && ./package-dmg.sh
# → build/ClipboardFox-<version>.dmg- Click the paperclip icon in the menu bar.
- Start typing to filter — matches highlight as you go.
- Click an entry (or press
Returnon the focused row) to copy it to your clipboard. - The popover dismisses automatically so you can paste immediately.
That's the whole loop. Most users never need the settings panel.
Open settings via the gear icon in the bottom‑right corner of the popover.
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Launch at Login | Start automatically when you log in. |
| Maximum Clips | How many clips to keep (default: 200). |
| Auto Backup | Save a backup file on every new clip. |
| Backup Path | Where the auto‑backup file is stored. |
| Export / Import | Manual backup and restore. JSON, merges without duplicates. |
| Rebuild | Rebuild the app from source — handy after git pull. |
| Quit | Exit the app. |
Clipboard history is stored locally at:
~/Library/Application Support/ClipboardFox/history.json
Auto‑backup defaults to:
~/Documents/ClipboardBackup.json
Both files are plain JSON. You can inspect, edit, or migrate them with any text editor.
ClipboardFox is a single Swift Package — no Xcode project, no CocoaPods, no Carthage.
swift build -c release # build for your host arch
./build.sh # build universal (arm64 + x86_64) and package .app
./package-dmg.sh # wrap the .app in a distributable .dmgRequirements
- macOS 13 (Ventura) or later
- Xcode 15 / Swift 5.9 or later
The CI workflow at .github/workflows/build-dmg.yml does exactly the above on a macos-14 runner. Pushing a v* tag automatically attaches the DMG to a GitHub Release.
- Pin favourite clips to the top
- Image / rich‑text clip support
- Global hotkey for "open ClipboardFox"
- Per‑app history filters
- iCloud sync (opt‑in)
- Homebrew cask
Have an idea? Open an issue — feature requests welcome.
Does ClipboardFox send my clipboard data anywhere?
No. There is no network code in the app. You can verify this by grepping the source — there is no URLSession, no Network import, nothing.
Will it slow down my Mac? No. The app idles at <10 MB of RAM and 0% CPU. It only does work when you press ⌘C or open the popover.
Can I clear individual entries? Yes — hover an entry and click the delete icon, or use the search bar to find and remove a specific clip.
Where is my history if I uninstall?
Your clipboard history JSON is in ~/Library/Application Support/ClipboardFox/. Delete it manually if you want a clean wipe.
Why not just use pbpaste?
You should — for the last clip. ClipboardFox is for everything before that.
Is there a Windows or Linux version? Not planned. ClipboardFox is built on AppKit / SwiftUI and is intentionally a small, native macOS app.
Pull requests are welcome. For larger changes, open an issue first so we can discuss the approach.
git clone https://github.com/libracoder/clipboardfox.git
cd clipboardfox
swift buildThe whole project is intentionally small — under a thousand lines of Swift across five files. New contributors should be able to read the codebase end‑to‑end in one sitting.
MIT — do whatever you want, but don't blame me if it breaks.
If ClipboardFox saves you a single "where did I copy that from?" moment, consider starring the repo — it genuinely helps others find it.