Notch and clipboard
Clipboard history on Mac: built-in and third-party tools
Updated · Applies to macOS 26 Tahoe and macOS 27 Golden Gate
Since macOS 26 Tahoe, Spotlight keeps a clipboard history: press ⌘ Space, then ⌘ 4, and choose an item to paste it. Set how long it's kept in System Settings → Keyboard → Clipboard History. For pins, longer history, and app exclusions, use a clipboard manager.
The built-in clipboard history
- Press ⌘ Space to open Spotlight.
- Press ⌘ 4 to switch to the clipboard view. The first time, macOS asks you to turn it on and warns that sensitive information may appear.
- Use the arrow keys or pointer to choose an item, and press Return to paste it.
To change how long items are kept, go to System Settings → Keyboard → Clipboard History. The options run from an hour to a week.
What it doesn’t do
- Items expire; there’s no way to pin something you paste every day.
- History is kept for a week at most.
- You can’t exclude specific apps from being recorded.
- It lives in Spotlight, so it’s a keyboard shortcut away rather than visible.
What clipboard managers add
- Pins for things you paste all the time.
- Longer history and search across it.
- App exclusions, so a password manager or banking app is never recorded.
- Paste as plain text, stripping formatting.
Clipboard managers worth knowing
- Maccy: free and open source, keyboard-first, with search and pins (maccy.app).
- Paste: a subscription app with iCloud sync to iPhone and iPad (pasteapp.io).
- Softset Clip: ours. A one-time purchase with image and file previews, pins, and app exclusions, and no sync. Compared in detail with Paste and Maccy.
Keeping passwords out of your history
Well-behaved password managers mark what they copy as concealed or temporary, using conventions from nspasteboard.org, and good clipboard managers skip those items. Still, exclude your password manager explicitly if the tool allows it, and clear the history if you ever copy something sensitive by hand.