Iterative Design

BetterPaste

Clipboard history for the Mac. Everything you copied recently, one keystroke away — and none of it ever leaves your computer.

Requires macOS 14 or later.

macOS remembers exactly one thing you copied. Copy something else and the previous item is gone, which is fine until the moment it isn't: you copy an address to paste into a form, copy a confirmation number on the way, and the address you needed is simply no longer there.

Windows solved this years ago with the Win + V panel. BetterPaste is that, built properly for the Mac. Press the shortcut, see what you have copied recently, pick one, and it pastes. That is the whole product.

What it does

• Keeps a rolling window of clipboard history. Everything you copy is held for a period of time you choose, then discarded automatically.
• Opens instantly with a keystroke. Set the shortcut to whatever you like. The panel is designed to be summoned, used, and dismissed without your hands leaving the keyboard.
• Moves entirely on the keyboard. Arrow keys to move through the list, Return to paste, ⌘Return to paste as plain text and leave the formatting behind.
• Pins the things you keep reaching for. Press p to pin an item. Pinned items float to the top of the panel and stay there — they do not expire and they are not affected by clearing your history.
• Handles more than plain text. Rich text with its formatting intact, clickable links, and images all come back the way you copied them.
• Stays out of the way. No dock clutter, no background noise, no notifications. It can launch at login so it is simply always there.

You choose how long things stick around

BetterPaste is time-based rather than count-based. Instead of keeping the last fixed number of items, it keeps everything from the last stretch of time — and you decide how long that stretch is in settings. Set it short if you want your history to clear itself frequently; set it longer if you want to reach further back in the day. Once an item falls outside the window, it is dropped.

Pinning is the exception, and it is the point of pinning. A pinned item is exempt from the retention window and from clearing your history, so the snippets you use every day survive while everything else rolls past.

What it deliberately doesn't do

BetterPaste has no account to create, no server to sync with, and no analytics. It does not phone home, and it does not have a network layer to phone home with. Your clipboard history stays on your Mac and nowhere else.

This is a deliberate constraint rather than a feature we have not gotten to yet. Clipboard contents are among the most sensitive data on a computer — passwords, account numbers, private messages, half-written email all pass through it. A clipboard manager that uploads that history is asking for a level of trust that the feature does not justify. We would rather not ask.

There is also no search box. The panel is a short list you arrow through, not a database you query.

Installing

1. Open the downloaded BetterPaste.dmg and drag BetterPaste into your Applications folder, then eject the disk image.
2. Launch BetterPaste from Applications. It appears in the menu bar — there is no Dock icon and no main window, so nothing else will seem to happen.
3. Copy something, then press ⌘⇧V to open the panel. That is the default shortcut; change it in settings if it collides with something you already use.
4. The first time you paste from the panel, macOS asks for Accessibility access. Grant it in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility, then quit and reopen BetterPaste so the permission takes effect.

BetterPaste is signed and notarized by Apple, so it opens without a Gatekeeper warning. To uninstall, quit it and drag it from Applications to the Trash; the support page covers removing pinned items as well.

There is no automatic updater in this build. When there is a new version we will post it here, and you install it by downloading again and replacing the copy in Applications.

Requirements and permissions

BetterPaste requires macOS 14 or later.

Recording what you copy needs no permission at all, and BetterPaste asks for none to do it. What does need permission is pasting: to put the item you picked into the app you were working in, BetterPaste synthesizes the ⌘V keystroke for you, and macOS requires Accessibility access for that. Grant it in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility.

Accessibility access is used for exactly that one purpose. If you decline it, BetterPaste will still record your clipboard and show you your history, but selecting an item will not paste it.

Getting help

Questions, bug reports, and feature requests go to support@iterative.design. See the support page for what to include so we can help you faster.