6 Best Free Clipboard Managers for Mac in 2026

How we picked

Every app here is free to download and use for everyday clipboard history, with no trial. Each one runs on current versions of macOS and has been updated recently, except the honorable mention at the end. We looked at how fast you can find and paste an old clip, how clips are organized, how sensitive data is handled and whether anything syncs.

Free Mac clipboard managers at a glance

1. Clipboardly: best free clipboard manager for organizing by project

Clipboardly is a free clipboard manager built only for the Mac. Its big idea is boards: create a board for a launch, a client or a trip, make it active, and everything you copy is saved there until you switch.

• Quick Paste: press ⌘⇧V in any app, type a few letters and press Return.
• Menu bar panel with search, filters and previews of links and images.
• 12 automatic clip types, including links, code, colors, emails, phone numbers, addresses, API keys and passwords.
• Privacy: pause saving in one click, and lock sensitive clips behind a 4-digit PIN.
• iCloud Sync through your own iCloud account, plus auto-capture of screenshots.

It runs on macOS 10.15 or later, on Apple Silicon and Intel Macs. Consider something else if you need your clipboard on iPhone or Windows.

2. Maccy: best free open-source clipboard manager

Maccy is free, open source under the MIT license and deliberately simple. It keeps a keyboard-first list of your history with search and pins, can paste with or without formatting, and can ignore sensitive apps. Install it from GitHub or with Homebrew for free. The $9.99 Mac App Store version is the same app, and buying it supports the developer.

Consider something else if you want boards, locked clips or sync, or your Mac runs anything older than macOS 14 Sonoma. See Clipboardly vs Maccy.

3. Raycast: best free clipboard history inside a launcher

Raycast is a free launcher that replaces Spotlight, and clipboard history is one of its built-in features. On the free plan it keeps your clipboard history for 3 months. Unlimited history is part of the paid Pro plan.

Consider something else if you only want a clipboard manager, not a whole launcher. See Raycast clipboard history alternatives.

4. CopyQ: best free clipboard manager for power users

CopyQ is free and open source (GPL-3.0) and runs on macOS 13 or later, Windows and Linux. It stores text, HTML and images in tabs you define, lets you edit, tag and add notes to items, and can be scripted from the command line.

Consider something else if you want something that feels like a native Mac app and works well without setup.

5. Clipy: best free clipboard manager with snippets

Clipy is a free, open-source (MIT) clipboard manager that keeps your history in a menu you open with a shortcut. It also stores snippets, reusable blocks of text you paste often. Version 1.3.0 is its first release in about eight years. It supports macOS 13 Ventura and later, including Apple Silicon.

Consider something else if you want search-first pasting, previews or sync.

6. macOS Tahoe Spotlight: free and already on your Mac

macOS Tahoe (macOS 26) added clipboard history to Spotlight. Press ⌘Space, then ⌘4. Since macOS 26.1 you can keep items for 30 minutes, 8 hours or 7 days. There's no pinning, no folders and no sync. It's enough if you rarely need anything older than this week. Read macOS Tahoe clipboard history: how it works and its limits.

Honorable mention: Flycut

Flycut is a free, open-source clipboard manager for developers, with ⇧⌘V to cycle through recent text. It's still free on the Mac App Store, but its last App Store update was in December 2020, so we'd pick one of the six above first.

Which free clipboard manager should you choose?

• You juggle several projects and want clips sorted for you: Clipboardly.
• You want the simplest free, open-source history: Maccy.
• You already use, or want, a launcher: Raycast.
• You like to script and customize everything: CopyQ.
• You paste the same blocks of text every day: Clipy.
• You don't want to install anything: macOS Tahoe's Spotlight history.

Frequently asked questions