I've leaned on a clipboard manager for years. The idea is simple and it changes how you work: everything you copy is kept, searchable, and a single keystroke away. Maccy is what sold me on it.
But the ones I tried either look like they were designed a decade ago, or they're Electron apps wrapping a web page, or they quietly want access to my files. I wanted the same reliable idea, rebuilt fresh for the newest macOS: fully native, genuinely nice to look at, and private by default.
So I built Clipwell. Everything stays on your Mac. No account, no subscription, no telemetry, no paywall.
Clipwell is a native macOS menu-bar app that remembers everything you copy (text, links, colors, images and files) and puts it all a single hotkey away. Search it, pin the things you reach for constantly, and paste with ⌘1 to ⌘9 or a click.
It's written in Swift and SwiftUI, stores everything as plain local files, and never asks for access to your folders.
- 📋 Full clipboard history. Text, links, colors (with a live swatch), images and files, all detected automatically.
- 📌 Pins with custom hotkeys. Keep the snippets and commands you use every day, and paste any of them with ⌘ plus your key.
- ⌨️ Paste in one keystroke. ⌘1 to ⌘9 for your recent copies, full arrow-key navigation, Return to paste.
- 🔍 Search that keeps up. Exact, fuzzy or regex, with match highlighting.
- 👁️ Hover preview. The full content, plus which app it came from, when you first and last copied it, and how many times.
- 🔒 No folder permissions, ever. Files show as a name and a type icon. Clipwell never reads your file contents, so macOS never nags you for Downloads or Desktop access.
- 🙈 Private by design. Everything stays on your Mac. Pause monitoring for sensitive work, ignore specific apps, pasteboard types or regex patterns, and optionally clear history on quit.
- 🔔 Copy notifications and sound. An optional banner and a soft tick on every new copy. Both off or on, to taste.
- 🎨 Native and modern. Pure Swift, SwiftUI and AppKit, designed for the newest macOS. No Electron, no web views.
- 🚀 Launch at login. Start quietly in your menu bar (optional).
- 🆓 Free and open source (MIT).
Requires macOS 26 (Tahoe) or newer. Clipwell is fully native and uses the newest macOS APIs. Pasting for you needs macOS Accessibility permission. It asks once, and you can change it later under System Settings, Privacy and Security, Accessibility.
- Download the latest Clipwell
.dmgfrom the Releases page. - Open it and drag Clipwell into your Applications folder.
- Allow it through macOS security. Because the app is free and self-signed
(not a paid, Apple-notarized certificate), macOS blocks the first launch with a
"can't be opened... Apple could not verify it is free of malware" warning. To
let it run:
- Double-click the app once, then close the warning.
- Open System Settings, Privacy and Security, scroll down to the message about Clipwell, and click Open Anyway, then Open to confirm.
- (On older macOS you can instead right-click the app, then pick Open twice.)
- When it asks for Accessibility access, grant it. That is what lets Clipwell paste the item you pick into the app in front of you. It is used for nothing else.
- Press ⇧⌘C to open Clipwell anywhere. That's it.
Clipwell lives in your menu bar. Left-click the icon for the popup, right-click for Pause, Settings or Quit.
git clone https://github.com/MrRockySL/Clipwell.git
cd Clipwell
./make-app.sh # builds build/MacClipBoard.app (ad-hoc signed)
cp -R build/MacClipBoard.app /Applications/Clipwell.appThe default global shortcut is ⇧⌘C, and you can change it in Settings, General. Built as a Swift Package (executable target, macOS 26 minimum), with one dependency: KeyboardShortcuts.
Clipwell is native the whole way down: Swift, SwiftUI and AppKit. No Electron, no web views.
macOS has no "clipboard changed" event, so Clipwell watches the pasteboard a few
times a second, works out what kind of thing you copied, and keeps it as plain
JSON in ~/Library/Application Support/ (images saved as PNGs alongside). Nothing
is uploaded, there's no account and no telemetry. Your history is just files on
your own disk that you can clear at any time.
Files are recorded by name only. Clipwell deliberately never reads a file's contents to make a thumbnail, because that would make macOS ask for access to your Downloads or Desktop, so it shows a clean type icon instead and never asks.
The one thing that needs a permission is pasting. Selecting an item simulates ⌘V into whatever app was in front, which uses macOS Accessibility.
This is an open project and contributions are welcome. Found a bug, have an idea, or want to improve something? Open an issue or send a pull request.
MIT, free to use and share. Want something changed? Open an issue.
The copy sound (Write.caf) is from Maccy,
used under its MIT license.
Made by MrRockySL.