clippy

a privacy-first clipboard manager for macos

shipped Apr 2026

overview

macOS Tahoe ships clipboard history, but the shortcut is two steps. one too many. Clippy collapses it to one: hit Cmd+Shift+V from any app, a floating panel appears, pick a clip, paste. that's it.

it's privacy-first. nothing leaves your machine, no network calls, no telemetry, no accounts. sensitive stuff like API keys, tokens, and passwords is automatically detected and never saved. password managers are excluded by default.

still building it out, but the core works.

tech stack

LayerChoiceWhy
LanguageSwiftNative macOS
UISwiftUI + AppKitSwiftUI for list/search; AppKit required for floating panel
PersistenceGRDB (SQLite)In-memory DB for unit tests
Global shortcutKeyboardShortcuts (Sindre Sorhus) via SPMBest-in-class
Paste injectionCGEvent via CoreGraphicsOnly viable approach; requires sandbox off
ThreadingDispatchSourceTimer on background queue0.5s polling, avoids RunLoop jitter
TestsXCTest with in-memory GRDB4 trim() tests passing