How to find an image you copied on macOS
You can do this with Paste My. Images are the hardest thing to search for by words and the easiest to filter for — which makes finding one quicker than finding text.
Copying an image is where a single-slot clipboard hurts most. You take a screenshot, copy it, then copy a filename to go with it — and the screenshot is gone.
It is also the case where searching by words does not help, because there are no words. The answer is to stop searching and start filtering.
Find the image again
Press ⇧⌘V
Your history opens with the newest clipping at the top. Images carry their own badge, so even without filtering they are easy to pick out of a list.
Narrow it to images
Press ⌘F and type
type:image. Everything that is not an image drops out and you are left with a short list of pictures.The filters panel does the same thing with a click if you would rather not type — set the kind filter to Images.
Type and the list narrows as you go. What does not match falls away; what does stays and lights up. Add a date if there are still too many
If you copy a lot of screenshots, the kind filter alone may not be enough. The date filter takes it the rest of the way: today, yesterday, the last 7 days, the last 30 days, or a range you choose.
Grouping the list by day helps here too — it turns a long list into a handful of labelled sessions.
Check you have the right one
Selecting an image shows a large preview with its pixel dimensions, which is usually the fastest way to tell two similar screenshots apart.
The entry also carries the app you copied it in and when, so a screenshot taken during a meeting is distinguishable from one taken this morning.
Press ⌘↩
The image goes back on your clipboard at the size you copied it, ready to paste.
If you would rather work with it as a file, an image can also be handled through Quick Look from its entry.
Whether images are kept at full resolution or as a lighter preview-quality copy is a setting, so you can choose between fidelity and space depending on how you work.
Images take more room than text
A screenshot is thousands of times larger than a line of text, so images are the thing most likely to make you think about how much history you are keeping. There are three settings that decide how much space they take, and they trade fidelity against room.
- Full-resolution images — you get back exactly what you copied. The right choice if you paste screenshots into documents and the detail matters.
- Preview-quality images — a lighter copy that keeps the picture recognisable and takes far less space.
- A per-item size limit — anything larger than the limit is still listed, so you can see that it happened, but its full content is not stored.
Pinning is the other half of the answer. A screenshot you keep going back to is worth pinning rather than hunting for — bearing in mind that a pinned clipping uses history room like any other, so pin the ones that earn it.
You can see what your library is using at a glance — how many clippings are saved, how much space they take, and how far back the oldest one goes.
Image or file — which one did you copy?
This trips people up more than anything else about images, and the distinction is not arbitrary.
Copying a picture inside an app — a screenshot to the clipboard, an image from a web page — copies the image data. It is stored as an image, with a preview and its pixel dimensions, and type:image finds it.
Copying a picture in the Finder copies the file. It is stored as a file, with a saved copy you can export back out to disk later, and type:file finds it.
Both are kept and both come back the way you copied them. If you are not sure which happened, clear the filter and look at the badges — the two kinds carry different ones.
If the image is not there
It was copied as a file, not an image
Copying a picture in the Finder copies the file, not the image data, so it will be under type:file rather than type:image.
Both are kept. If you are not sure which happened, clear the filter and look at the badges — the two kinds have different ones.
It came back smaller or softer than you expected
Images can be kept at full resolution or as a lighter preview-quality copy, and the lighter setting trades fidelity for space. If you regularly need pixel-exact images back, keep full resolution on.
A very large image is listed but has no content
There is a per-item size limit for what gets stored in full. Anything above it is still listed so you know it happened, but its full content is left out. Raising the limit changes that for future copies.
Questions people ask
Does it keep screenshots automatically?
It keeps whatever you copy. A screenshot taken to the clipboard is a copy, so it is kept; a screenshot saved straight to a file is a file on your desktop and never touched the clipboard at all.
Can I see how big the image is?
Yes. Selecting an image shows a large preview with its pixel dimensions, which is usually enough to tell near-identical screenshots apart.
Will pasting it back lose quality?
Not if full-resolution images are kept — you get back exactly what you copied. The lighter preview-quality option is the one that trades detail for space, and it is yours to choose.
How do I stop screenshots filling my history?
Pin the ones that matter so they are never cleaned up, and let the rest age out. There is also an option to remove clippings older than a number of days, which keeps the list to things you might realistically still want.
Can I find an image I copied on my iPhone?
If it reached your Mac over Universal Clipboard, yes. The entry is marked as having arrived from another Apple device, and it waits for the transfer to finish so you get the whole image rather than a partial one.
Can I preview an image without copying it?
Yes. Selecting it shows a large preview with its pixel dimensions, and Quick Look is available from the entry if you want a closer look.
Do images count against my history the same as text?
They occupy the same one slot in your history that a line of text does. What differs is disk space, which is what the full-resolution and preview-quality settings are for.
Get Paste My
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