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FAQ & troubleshooting

General​

Does Clipped send my clipboard data anywhere?​

No. Clipped runs entirely on your Mac. There's no telemetry, no account, and no cloud sync. History is stored locally at ~/Library/Application Support/Clipped/ and encrypted at rest using a key held in the macOS Keychain, so other processes and Time Machine backups can't read the raw contents.

How much memory does Clipped use?​

Typically under 30 MB with a full history. Images are stored as compressed thumbnails.

Does Clipped need Accessibility permissions?​

Not for normal use. Selecting an item and pressing Return just copies it back to your clipboard — no keystroke injection is involved, so no permissions are needed. The optional Paste action (from the right-click menu) synthesises ⌘V via CGEvent and therefore does need Accessibility access, but the rest of the app works fine without it.

Why Option+C instead of ⌘⇧V?​

⌥C is out of reach of almost every other macOS shortcut, whereas ⌘⇧V is claimed by Google Docs, Notion, and many others. If you prefer the familiar combo, rebind it in Settings → General → Keyboard shortcut.

Can I sync clipboard history between Macs?​

Not currently. Clipped is a single-machine tool by design.

What macOS versions are supported?​

macOS 15.0 (Sequoia) or later, on Apple Silicon or Intel.

Troubleshooting​

Clipped isn't capturing my copies​

  1. Check that Clipped is running — look for the clipboard icon in your menu bar.
  2. Option-click the menu bar icon and make sure monitoring isn't paused.
  3. If you copy a password from 1Password or Bitwarden and it doesn't appear, that's Secure mode doing its job. Change it in Settings → General → Security.

The global shortcut doesn't work​

  1. Another app may have claimed the same combo. Rebind it in Settings → General → Keyboard shortcut.
  2. If you recently updated macOS, try toggling the shortcut off and back on to force re-registration.

Screenshots aren't being captured​

  1. Make sure Capture screenshots to history is enabled in Settings → General → Screenshots.
  2. Clipped needs read-only access to your screenshots folder. If you moved or renamed the folder, re-pick it from the Change… button in Settings.
  3. macOS saves screenshots to ~/Desktop by default, but you can change this in the macOS Screenshot utility (⌘⇧5 → Options → Save to).

A URL isn't showing a page title​

Clipped fetches page titles in the background and caches them. If the site is slow, behind auth, or blocks automated requests, the preview will just show the bare URL. This is cosmetic — the URL itself is still captured correctly.

The Paste action isn't working​

The context menu Paste / Paste as plain text actions synthesise ⌘V via CGEvent and require Accessibility permissions:

  1. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility.
  2. Add (or toggle on) Clipped.
  3. You only need this for the right-click Paste actions — pressing Return in the panel works without it.

Items are disappearing from my history​

Clipped keeps the most recent N items (100 by default). When the cap is reached, the oldest items are trimmed. Raise the limit in Settings → General → History size, up to 500. Pinned items are never trimmed.

If you haven't enabled Persist history across reboots, quitting Clipped or restarting your Mac will clear the in-memory history. Turn it on in Settings → General → General.