Open source · macOS 14+ · Universal binary

The clipboard manager
your Mac deserves.

Press ⌘⇧V and a Spotlight-style bar appears with your last 500 copies — text, code, colors and images — ready to paste. 100% native Swift. Under 30 MB. Zero permissions.

View on GitHub

Free & MIT licensed · Apple Silicon & Intel · Latest release

Features

Small app. Big clipboard.

Everything you copy, one keystroke away — without a bloated Electron shell eating your battery.

Under 30 MB of RAM

Only thumbnails live in memory. Full image blobs sit on disk, metadata in SQLite. Your 16 GB laptop won't notice ClipBar exists.

500-item history with pinning

A rolling ring buffer keeps your last 500 copies. Pin the ones that matter and they'll never be pruned.

Color swatches

Hex, rgb() and hsl() strings are detected and rendered with a live color circle so you can spot the right shade instantly.

Code detection

Copies from Xcode, VS Code, JetBrains, iTerm, Terminal and Cursor — or anything with high symbol density — render in monospace with syntax-friendly spacing.

Image history, deduped

Screenshots and copied images are stored with 120px thumbnails and SHA-256 hashed, so copying the same thing twice never costs you twice.

Instant fuzzy search

Start typing the moment the bar appears. Results filter as you type, across text, code, colors and image names.

Full keyboard navigation

Never touch the mouse. ↑↓ navigate, ↩ paste, ⌘P pin, ⌘⌫ delete, ⌘1–5 switch filter tabs.

Private by design

Respects the concealed and transient pasteboard markers used by password managers. The hotkey needs zero macOS permissions. No telemetry, no accounts, no network.

~0.1% idle CPU

A background timer polls changeCount every 0.4s and bails out instantly when nothing changed. Your fans stay quiet.

Shortcuts

Hands on the keys.

ClipBar is built for people who think faster than they can reach a trackpad. Every action has a key.

The global hotkey is registered with Carbon's RegisterEventHotKey — no Accessibility or Input Monitoring prompts.

ActionKeys
Summon ClipBar⌘⇧V
Searchjust start typing
Navigate items↑↓
Paste selected item↩
Pin / unpin⌘P
Delete item⌘⌫
Filter: All · Text · Code · Colors · Images⌘1…⌘5
Dismissesc

Privacy & performance

How it stays fast and keeps quiet.

  1. 01

    Watch, don't snoop

    ClipBar polls NSPasteboard.general.changeCount every 0.4 seconds on a background timer with leeway. If nothing changed, it exits immediately — hence ~0.1% idle CPU.

  2. 02

    Skip what's secret

    Anything flagged ConcealedType, TransientType or AutoGeneratedType (what 1Password, Bitwarden & friends use) is never read or stored.

  3. 03

    Classify & store locally

    Text and metadata go to a SQLite database; images are written to disk as blobs with a 120px thumbnail. Everything lives in ~/Library/Application Support/ClipBar.

  4. 04

    Prune, never leak

    Unpinned items past the 500th are pruned and orphaned image files are deleted. Nothing ever leaves your Mac — there's no server to send it to.

Download

Get ClipBar for macOS

Pay what you want — including nothing. Built for macOS 14 Sonoma or newer, Apple Silicon and Intel.

All releases

ClipBar.zip · GitHub Releases

Not notarized yet: on first launch right-click ClipBar.app → Open.

  • macOS 14 Sonoma+
  • Universal (Apple Silicon + Intel)
  • MIT licensed · open source
  • No ads, no accounts, no telemetry

FAQ

Questions, answered.

Is it free?

Yes. ClipBar is MIT licensed and the source is on GitHub. Pre-built downloads are offered on a Pay What You Want basis — pick $0 and you'll get the exact same app. If it earns a spot in your menu bar, a coffee on Ko-fi is very appreciated.

Does it need any permissions?

No. The global ⌘⇧V hotkey uses Carbon's RegisterEventHotKey, which doesn't require Accessibility or Input Monitoring. Reading the pasteboard is something every app can do. ClipBar never asks for anything.

Where is my data stored?

Locally, in ~/Library/Application Support/ClipBar: a SQLite database for text and metadata, plus a Blobs/ folder for images. Delete that folder and the history is gone. Nothing is ever uploaded.

Why is it not notarized?

Notarization requires a paid Apple Developer account, which ClipBar doesn't have yet. macOS will warn you on first launch — right-click ClipBar.app → Open once and it runs normally from then on. You can also build it yourself from source with swift build.