How to see clipboard history on a Mac

What macOS gives you on its own

By default, macOS remembers only your most recent copy. There is no built-in way to scroll back through earlier items.

macOS 26 (Tahoe) added a clipboard history to Spotlight that keeps recent text and images for up to seven days, then clears them. It is free and handy for a quick look back, but it forgets clips within days, strips formatting, and is only available on macOS 26.

How to keep a full, searchable history

For a history that does not vanish in a few days, use a clipboard manager. It runs in the menu bar and keeps what you copy so you can find and reuse it later.

1. 1

   Install a clipboard manager

   macOS does not keep a history on its own beyond Spotlight's short-lived buffer, so you install a small menu-bar app. Drobu is one option; Maccy is a free, open-source one.

2. 2

   Let it capture automatically

   From then on, everything you copy is saved to your history in the background. Passwords from password managers are ignored.

3. 3

   Open your history with a keystroke

   Press the app's shortcut from any app. In Drobu that is Cmd+Shift+V.

4. 4

   Search and paste

   Type a few letters to find the clip you want, then press Return to paste it where you are. With Drobu you can also select several clips and paste them together.

Which one should you use?

If you just need to glance at the last few days of copied text and you are on macOS 26, the Spotlight clipboard is enough. If you want a free, open-source history of text and images, Maccy is excellent.

Drobu is worth the $14.99 if you want your history kept for up to a year, full-text search, the app each clip came from, and the ability to edit what you paste: crop an image, trim a clip, clean up copied text, or record your screen to a GIF or video, all in the same history. It runs on macOS 14 and later, stays fully local, and is a one-time purchase.