A lightweight, native macOS clipboard manager.
One hotkey. Instant popup. Text and images. No subscription.
If you want 200 features, use Raycast. If you want iCloud sync, use Paste. If you just want a fast, native, free clipboard history that handles text and images — this is it.
| ✅ Free & open source | ✅ Text & images |
| ✅ Native Swift — ~1 MB | ✅ Pin favourites |
| ✅ Search as you type | ✅ Per-app privacy exclusions |
| ✅ Source app icons | ✅ Survives restarts |
| ✅ Launch at Login | ✅ No subscription, no telemetry |
- ⚡ Instant popup — press
⌥Vfrom any app, your clipboard history appears at the cursor - 🖼 Text & images — captures plain text, screenshots, images from Finder, browsers, Preview
- 🔍 Search — type to filter instantly; searches content and source app name
- 📌 Pin favourites — pinned items float to the top and are never evicted by newer copies
- 🔒 Privacy controls — exclude apps (e.g. 1Password) so sensitive data is never recorded
- 👁 Hide images toggle — one click in the popup to go text-only
- 🏷 Source app icons — see at a glance which app each item came from
- 🪶 Truly lightweight — ~1 MB, pure SwiftUI, no background web process, no telemetry
- Download ClipHistory.dmg
- Open the DMG and drag ClipHistory.app to
/Applications - Right-click → Open on first launch (Gatekeeper prompt — one time only)
- Grant Accessibility permission when the onboarding screen asks
Or bypass Gatekeeper from the terminal:
xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/ClipHistory.app
Requires macOS 14 Sonoma or later.
git clone https://github.com/weiykong/ClipHistory.git
cd ClipHistory
bash scripts/build-dmg.sh # → dist/ClipHistory.dmgRequires Xcode Command Line Tools: xcode-select --install
| Action | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| Open popup | ⌥V (customisable in Settings) |
| Navigate | ↑ / ↓ |
| Paste selected | ↵ |
| Search | Click the search bar, then type |
| Pin / unpin item | Click the pin icon on the row |
| Hide images | photo toggle in the popup header |
| Close | Esc or click outside |
| Settings | Menu bar icon → Settings… |
Zero dependencies. Swift Package Manager executable target.
Sources/ClipHistory/
├── main.swift # NSApplication entry point
├── AppDelegate.swift # Menu bar, hotkey, clipboard polling timer
├── AppSettings.swift # @Observable settings + UserDefaults persistence
├── ClipboardStore.swift # Item store, polling, PNG thumbnailing
├── PopupWindowController.swift # NSPanel + CGEventTap keyboard intercept
├── PopupView.swift # SwiftUI popup UI
├── PopupState.swift # Shared search / selection state
├── SettingsView.swift # SwiftUI settings window
├── OnboardingView.swift # First-launch setup guide
├── HotkeyShortcut.swift # Hotkey model + Carbon registration
├── HotkeyRecorderView.swift # NSViewRepresentable hotkey recorder
└── MenuBarIcon.swift # Programmatic SF Symbol menu bar icon
Key design decisions
NSPanel with .nonactivatingPanel
The popup becomes the key window (so SwiftUI buttons receive clicks) without ever activating the app. The previously focused app keeps its text cursor throughout — Cmd+V fires straight into it after paste.
Session-level CGEventTap
Keyboard events are intercepted at the OS session level while the popup is visible, routing them to search and navigation without stealing focus from the source app.
@Observable + @Bindable
Modern Swift observation macros throughout — no @StateObject or @ObservedObject.
Image thumbnailing
Clipboard images (screenshots, browser copies, Finder files) are downscaled to ≤ 480 px PNG at capture time using NSImage(size:flipped:drawingHandler:), which forces lazy clipboard images that report size=(0,0) to render before sampling.
Issues and pull requests are welcome.
Please open an issue first before starting any large change so we can discuss the approach.
MIT © 2025 Weiyuan Kong