Maccy

Maccy is a free, open-source clipboard manager for macOS that stores your entire copy history and surfaces any item instantly through a lightweight keyboard-driven popup.

What is Maccy?

Maccy is a minimalist clipboard manager built specifically for macOS. Every time you press ⌘C, Maccy silently saves what you copied — text, file paths, code snippets, URLs — and keeps that history ready for retrieval through a single hotkey. It sits in the menu bar, weighs almost nothing on system resources, and gets out of your way entirely when you don't need it.

I've been running it in the background for months alongside heavier tools and I barely notice it's there — until I desperately need something I copied three hours ago, and then I'm enormously glad it exists.

What does Maccy do best?

Maccy's greatest strength is its speed and intentional simplicity. Tap your hotkey (⇧⌘V by default, fully remappable), type a few characters to fuzzy-search your clipboard history, press Return — done. The entire interaction takes under two seconds without touching the mouse.

• Fuzzy search across your full history so you don't need to remember when you copied something, only roughly what it contained
• Plain-text pasting by default, stripping invisible formatting that would otherwise corrupt your document
• Pinned entries for snippets you reach for constantly — boilerplate emails, API prefixes, your own email address
• Image support so screenshots and copied graphics land in history alongside text
• Configurable history depth — store dozens of items or thousands, depending on how far back you ever need to reach

What Maccy deliberately skips is equally important: there are no cloud sync clouds to configure, no snippet libraries, no team workspaces. If you want a full snippet manager, look at TextSoap or Raycast's clipboard integration. Maccy is for people who want clipboard history and nothing else.

Is Maccy free?

Yes — Maccy is completely free to download and use, with no feature gates, no subscription, and no nag screens. The source code is public on GitHub under the MIT licence, so you can audit exactly what it does with your clipboard data (spoiler: everything stays local). The developer accepts voluntary donations, but the app is fully functional without them.

Who should use Maccy?

Maccy is ideal for developers, writers, and anyone who spends a significant portion of their day copying and pasting across multiple contexts. If you've ever lost a carefully-crafted piece of text because you accidentally overwrote your clipboard, or found yourself jumping between browser tabs just to re-copy the same URL you had ten minutes ago, Maccy solves that permanently.

It's also a sensible first clipboard manager for users who feel intimidated by full-featured tools like Alfred or Raycast. There's no workflow to design, no plugin ecosystem to navigate — install it, set a hotkey, and it works.

Power users who already live inside Raycast may find Raycast's built-in clipboard history sufficient, especially if they want one launcher for everything. But Maccy's dedicated focus means it boots faster and carries a noticeably lighter memory footprint than any general-purpose launcher doing clipboard duty on the side.

How does Maccy compare to Alfred and Raycast?

Alfred (with Powerpack) and Raycast both include clipboard history as one feature among dozens. Maccy does only clipboard history — and because of that focus, it loads instantly and uses a fraction of the RAM those launchers consume.

The tradeoff is obvious: if you're already paying for Alfred Powerpack or using Raycast Pro, you get clipboard history included and may not need a separate tool. But if you're on neither — or if you want clipboard history without surrendering to a full launcher ecosystem — Maccy is the cleaner, lighter choice. I run Raycast for search and Maccy for clipboard; they coexist without any conflict.

What are the best Maccy alternatives?

The most direct alternative is Pasta, which offers a more visual grid-style history browser and iCloud sync — useful if you work across multiple Macs. CopyClip is another menu-bar-only option, though its search is less capable. Raycast bundles clipboard history for free and adds launcher, snippets, and extensions if you want the kitchen sink. Alfred (Powerpack required) has one of the most mature clipboard managers available, with workflow integration and custom merging rules. For pure keyboard-first simplicity at zero cost, nothing beats Maccy.