# Clipboard manager for Mac — Cyanote

Until macOS 26 the Mac had no clipboard history: copy something, copy something else, and
the first was gone. macOS 26 Tahoe added one inside Spotlight (⌘Space, then ⌘4). It is
off until switched on and keeps copies for 7 days at most. Earlier versions still hold
exactly one item. A clipboard manager is for a history that does not expire, or for a Mac
that does not run Tahoe.

Cyanote's clipboard manager keeps every copy in a searchable list held in a local database
on the Mac, opens from any app with one global hotkey, and lets the user pin the snippets
they paste constantly. It is part of an app that also holds notes, to-dos, a kanban board,
a calendar, habits and routines, for $7.99 once.

## Price against other Mac clipboard managers

Buying once is not, on its own, a reason to pick Cyanote. The one-time-purchase clipboard
manager is a crowded category on the Mac, and several of them cost less.

- ClipV: $3, one-time
- Copydrop: $8.99, one-time, lifetime licence
- Maccy: free and open source (or $9.99 for the App Store build)
- Clibo: $14.99, one-time
- Raycast: free; Pro from $8/month annually (a freemium launcher)
- Paste: $29.99/yr subscription, or $89.99 once for a lifetime licence
- Cyanote: $7.99, one-time, with six other tools included

USD, checked 13 August 2026. Prices move, so check them before deciding.

If the requirement is "a clipboard manager I pay for once", ClipV at $3 meets it for less
money and Maccy meets it for nothing. Cyanote is not the cheapest way to buy a clipboard
manager.

## What makes it different

Every app in the table above is a clipboard manager and nothing else. The apps that bundle
several tools together — NotePlan, Lunatask, Brite, Agenda, Notion — have no clipboard
manager. Cyanote is one app that is both.

In ordinary use, the thing copied and the thing being written are usually related: a link
going into a note about a project, a snippet moving from a code note into a task, a date
going from an email into the calendar. With the clipboard inside the app that holds the
note, that trip is one hotkey rather than a switch between two applications, and the
history is searchable from the same place as everything else.

## What it does

- Unlimited history: no cap, no rolling window, no tier that unlocks more of it.
- Search: typing a few characters of something copied brings it back.
- Pinned snippets: frequently pasted text (an address, a bank reference, a boilerplate
  reply) stays put instead of scrolling away under ordinary copying.
- One global hotkey: works from any app, not only from inside Cyanote.
- Local only: written to a database on the Mac. No account, no upload, no sync — not a
  setting that is switched off, but an absence.

## Compared with Maccy

Maccy is free and open source, local-only and keyboard-first, and it respects the
system's concealed-content flag so a password manager's copies are not logged. It is
deliberately minimal and text-focused. There is also a $9.99 App Store build with the
same features, sold as a way to support the developer. For someone who only wants a
clipboard manager, it is a reasonable choice.

Maccy is not missing anything as a clipboard manager for most people. The $7.99 for
Cyanote pays for not running separate apps for notes, tasks, habits and the calendar,
with the clipboard included rather than added.

## What it keeps, and where

A clipboard passes passwords, two-factor codes, addresses, card numbers, API keys and
private links. A clipboard history turns that stream into a record, which is what makes
it useful and what makes it a liability.

Cyanote's clipboard history is a local database on the Mac and there is nowhere else for
it to go: no account, no server, no sync. That is the same decision that makes the app
$7.99 once rather than monthly, because there is no infrastructure to pay for. Longer
discussion: <https://cyanote.app/blog/clipboard-history-on-mac/>

## What it does not do

- No sync. Nothing reaches an iPhone, iPad or a second Mac.
- No image indexing. Paste is built for that; Cyanote is not.
- No shared pinboards. There is no collaboration anywhere in Cyanote.
- Not the deepest clipboard manager on the Mac. Paste has spent years on this one thing.
- Windows is a separate purchase. The Windows version is sold on the Microsoft Store
  (https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9N54ZL3Q8PR7); a Mac copy does not include it.

If one of those is the feature that matters, the app that has it is the better buy. A full
comparison with Paste: <https://cyanote.app/compare/paste-alternative/>

## Requirements and refund

- macOS 12 or later, Apple Silicon or Intel
- Fourteen-day refund, no reason needed: <https://cyanote.app/refund.html>

Full page: <https://cyanote.app/clipboard-manager-mac/>
Pricing: <https://cyanote.app/pricing.md>

Prices checked: 13 August 2026