A fast, native clipboard manager for macOS. Press a hotkey, see everything you copied (text and images), and paste it straight into the app you're working in.
Built as a modern alternative to Flycut: same shortcuts, plus image support and a Spotlight-style interface.
- Text, images, and files. Everything you copy is captured, including screenshots and copied images.
- Spotlight-style panel. Press ⇧⌘V (configurable), search, hit Enter. The panel never steals focus from the app you're in.
- Direct paste. Selecting an item pastes it immediately into the active app. This needs your permission once, and falls back to plain copying if you'd rather not grant it.
- Pins. Pin items to keep them at the top forever.
- Privacy-aware. Entries from password managers are ignored automatically, and you can exclude any app yourself.
- Persistent. History survives restarts, and you decide how much to keep.
Requires macOS 14 or later.
Grab the latest CopyKat.zip from the
releases page, unzip it, and
drag CopyKat to your Applications folder.
Or build it from source:
brew install xcodegen
git clone https://github.com/mixxamm/CopyKat.git
cd CopyKat
xcodegen generate
xcodebuild -scheme CopyKat -destination 'platform=macOS' buildThe app lands in Xcode's DerivedData. For day-to-day development, open the project in Xcode and hit ⌘R.
CopyKat is a menubar app with a deliberately small core:
| Component | Role |
|---|---|
Monitor/ |
Polls NSPasteboard (macOS offers no change notifications) and classifies new content |
Store/ |
SwiftData-backed history; images live as PNG files on disk, deduplicated by content hash |
Panel/ |
Non-activating NSPanel hosting the SwiftUI search panel, so focus stays in your app |
Paste/ |
Writes the selection back to the clipboard and simulates ⌘V (Accessibility permission) |
Settings/ |
Hotkey, history size, excluded apps, launch at login |
Sensitive clipboard entries marked with
org.nspasteboard.ConcealedType are never stored.
See CONTRIBUTING.md. Bug reports and PRs welcome.