How to see your clipboard history on macOS

Your Mac's clipboard holds one thing at a time. Copy an address, and the paragraph you copied a minute ago is not hidden somewhere — it is gone.

You already know the feeling. You copy a tracking number over the message you were about to send. You go back for a link that was there thirty seconds ago and find there is nothing to go back to. It is a small loss, and it happens several times a day.

This guide shows you how to see everything you have copied on your Mac, put any of it back on your clipboard, and find one particular clipping in about a second.

See your clipboard history in six steps

1. Open your history

   Press ⇧⌘V. Your history opens with the newest clipping at the top and everything before it underneath, in the order you copied it.

   There is nothing to switch on first and no key to remember at the moment you copy. Paste My saves each clipping as you make it, so by the time you come looking, it is already waiting.

2. Read an entry

   Each row tells you three things before you open it: what kind of clipping it is, which app it came from, and whether it arrived from another device.

   The badge on the left is the kind — plain text, a link, an image, a file, a piece of code. The small disc sitting on that badge is the app you copied from, with its own icon, so a snippet from Safari is distinguishable from one from your notes at a glance.

   And if a clipping arrived over Universal Clipboard from an iPhone, iPad or another Mac, the row says so. When the signals disagree, Paste My marks the entry unverified rather than guessing — and it never asks for the permission that would let it watch your other apps.

   From iPhone

   Safari

3. Put something back on your clipboard

   Select the clipping and press ⌘↩. It goes back on your clipboard exactly as you copied it — styled text stays styled, an image stays full size — and a small Copied confirmation appears. Paste it wherever you were going.

   In the Simplified layout it is shorter still: click a card and it is copied.

   Two things happen quietly here that save you from a cluttered list. Putting an item back never adds a duplicate. And re-copying something you already have bumps the entry you already own and counts how often you have reached for it, rather than stacking five identical clippings on top of each other.

4. Find one in a second

   Press ⌘F and start typing. The list narrows as you go, and your search terms are highlighted in the previews so you can see exactly which part matched.

   When you want to be precise, type a token instead of a word:

   • type:text, type:link, type:image, type:file — narrow to one kind
   • pinned:yes or pinned:no — only what you have pinned, or only what you have not

   Tokens and ordinary words mix freely in the same field, so type:link invoice is a perfectly good search. You can also choose whether searching looks at the content alone, or at the content and its details — the name of the app you copied from, for instance.

   If you would rather click than type, the filters panel does the same job: filter by kind, by date, or by the app a clipping came from. That last list includes every app you have ever copied from, not only the ones running right now.

5. Pick the layout that suits you

   Paste My ships two complete layouts, and neither one hides anything the other shows.

   Detailed is three columns: your sources on the left, your history in the middle, and a full inspector on the right showing everything known about whatever you have selected. It is the one to use when you are working through a lot of clippings.

   Simplified is a single centred column of cards. Click a card to put it back on your clipboard; click it again to open a drawer underneath with the item's details. All the substance, none of the furniture.

   Switch whenever you like, in Settings ▸ General ▸ Layout. Nothing is lost either way — it is the same history, presented two ways.

   DetailedSimplified

6. Keep it a click away

   Paste My lives in your menu bar, which is where you will reach for it most. Open the picker and you can search your history without opening the main window, then press ⌘1 through ⌘9 to put one of the first nine straight back on your clipboard — no mouse involved.

   The same menu is where you pause or resume saving, open Settings, and quit. The icon itself shows which state you are in, so you can always tell at a glance whether your history is recording.

   ⌘1

   ⌘2

   ⌘3

   ⌘4

The shortcuts worth remembering

Six of these work inside Paste My. The last three work in any app at all, which turns your clipboard into a quick converter without opening anything.

Every shortcut is listed inside Settings as well, so you never have to remember which page of a manual it was on.

What is kept, and what never is

A clipboard history is only useful if you can put your worst secrets through it without thinking twice. So:

• Nothing leaves your Mac. No account, no analytics, no servers. The only time Paste My uses the network at all is to talk to the App Store when you buy or restore something.
• Likely secrets are hidden on sight. Passwords and passphrases, API keys and tokens, private keys, one-time codes and real payment-card numbers are recognised on your Mac and masked on screen until you choose to reveal them. Card numbers are checked properly, so an order number is never mistaken for one.
• Some things are never saved at all. Password managers mark what they put on the clipboard as private. Paste My honours that marker and stores nothing — no setting required, nothing for you to remember.
• You can exclude an app entirely. Put it on the ignore list and its copies are skipped completely — not the content, not even the app's name.
• Removing the app removes the history with it. There is no leftover copy anywhere else.

If your history is not showing what you expect

Nothing new is appearing

Saving is probably paused. The menu-bar icon shows which state you are in; press ⇧⌘K, or open the menu-bar picker and switch it back on. Anything you copied while it was paused was not recorded, so copy it again once you have resumed.

Your history is shorter than you expected

How far back your history reaches depends on how much room it has. The free version keeps your five most recent clippings, and a one-time purchase widens that considerably if you find five is not enough.

Pinned clippings are never removed by cleanup, however long ago you pinned them — but they do use history room like anything else. You can pin on the free version; just pin the handful of things you genuinely reach for, with ⌘P, rather than everything that looks useful.

One app's copies never appear

Two possibilities, both deliberate. That app may be on your ignore list or have its capture set to off, in which case its copies are skipped by design. Or it may be a password manager marking its content as private, which Paste My never stores.

You can see an entry but not what is in it

It was recognised as sensitive and is masked on purpose. Open it and choose to reveal it when you actually need it. The confirmation you saw at the time said Saved privately for exactly this reason.

Questions people ask

Does macOS keep a clipboard history on its own?

The Mac clipboard holds one item at a time, and each new copy replaces the last one. A history is what Paste My adds — every clipping kept as you make it, in order, with the app it came from recorded alongside it.

How far back does my history go?

As far back as the room you have. The free version keeps your five most recent clippings and a one-time purchase widens that. Pinned clippings are never removed by cleanup, but they do use that room, so pin only what is important.

Can I see something I copied on my iPhone?

Yes, if it reached your Mac over Universal Clipboard. The entry is marked as having arrived from another Apple device, and it waits for the transfer to finish before saving, so what you get back is the whole thing rather than a half-arrived version.

Does it save my passwords?

No. Password managers mark what they put on the clipboard as private and Paste My stores nothing at all in that case. Anything else that looks like a secret — an API key, a one-time code, a real card number — is recognised on your Mac and masked on screen until you choose to reveal it.

Can I stop it recording for a while?

Press Shift-Command-K, or use the menu-bar picker. The menu-bar icon shows whether saving is on or paused, so the state is always visible. Anything copied while paused is not recorded.

What happens to my history if I remove the app?

It goes with it. Your history lives with Paste My rather than loose on your disk, so removing the app removes the history too. There is no copy left anywhere else and nothing to clean up by hand.

Keep going

What's inside

See what Paste My does

The short tour: capture, sources, search, the two layouts and the menu bar.