PasteBoard
Maccy, Paste, and Clipy come up constantly in any "best clipboard manager for Mac" discussion, and for good reason — each represents a distinct approach: minimal and free, polished and paid, or barebones and free. Here's how they actually differ in daily use.
The three at a glance
| Maccy | Paste | Clipy | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, open source | Subscription | Free, open source |
| Interface | Minimal text list | Visual board with previews | Minimal text list |
| Sync | No | iCloud | No |
| Snippets | No | Yes, with shelves | Basic |
| Active development | Active | Active | Slower / community-maintained |
Maccy
Maccy's entire pitch is doing one thing exceptionally well: a fast, searchable, keyboard-first clipboard history with nothing extra. It's open source, actively maintained, and free with no upsell. The interface is plain on purpose — a simple list you filter by typing. See our dedicated Maccy guide for setup steps and shortcuts.
Paste
Paste is built for people who think visually. Images, color swatches, and rich text show up as actual previews rather than file names or raw text. It syncs across Macs and iPhones via iCloud and supports "shelves" of pinned, organized snippets for repeated work like email templates or boilerplate code. It's the most expensive option here because it's a subscription, but it's also the most fully featured.
Clipy
Clipy predates both of the others and remains a solid, lightweight, free choice — especially for older Macs where battery life or memory footprint matters. Development has slowed compared to Maccy's, so newer macOS features and design conventions sometimes lag, but the core history-and-paste function still works reliably.
Which one should you pick?
- Want free, fast, and private: Maccy.
- Want visual previews and multi-device sync, and don't mind paying monthly: Paste.
- Want free and don't mind a dated interface: Clipy.
One more worth a glance if none of the three quite fit: PasteClip takes a one-time-purchase, privacy-first approach — a fast local tool for people who want stricter default privacy controls than Clipy or Maccy without paying a subscription like Paste's.
For most readers landing on this comparison, Maccy is the safest starting point — you can always upgrade to Paste later if you find yourself wanting visual previews or cross-device sync.
Frequently asked questions
Is Maccy as good as Paste?
For plain-text clipboard history, yes — Maccy matches Paste's core functionality for free. Paste pulls ahead if you need visual previews of images and colors, or iCloud sync across devices.
Is Clipy still maintained?
Clipy is open source and still works on current macOS versions, but updates are less frequent than Maccy's. If you want the most actively developed free option, Maccy is generally the safer pick.
