Paste and Maccy alternative
Your clipboard history, without a subscription
Paste is the polished clipboard manager that syncs everywhere — on a subscription. Maccy is the free, open-source one. Folia Files has a clipboard history built in, in a file manager you buy once: ⌃⌥V from any app, pinned items, and passwords never kept.
7 days free with every feature, no account, no card. Then $49.99 once for up to 3 Macs, every future update included — no subscription.
In short
Paste ($3.99 a month, $29.99 a year or $99.99 for life, for Mac, iPhone and iPad; also on Setapp) syncs your history through iCloud and sorts it into pinboards. Maccy is free and open source ($9.99 on the Mac App Store to support it), light and keyboard-first. Folia Files ($49.99 once, up to 3 Macs) brings back text, rich text, images, links, colors and files with ⌃⌥V from any app, with search, a preview, pinned items and plain-text paste; it never reads what password managers mark as private, and keeps the history on your Mac only. Choose Paste to sync across your devices, Maccy for a free tool that does one thing; choose Folia Files to get the clipboard and the file manager in one purchase.
Clipboard history
| Feature | Folia Files | Paste | Maccy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Text, images, links and files | YesAlso rich text and colors | Yes | Yes |
| Opens from any app | Yes⌃⌥V | Yes⇧⌘V | Yes⇧⌘C |
| Search the history | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Pinned items | Yes⌘P | YesPinboards | Yes⌥P |
| Paste as plain text | Yes⌥↩ | Yes⇧↩ | Yes⌥⇧↩ |
| Passwords left out | YesPrivate items never read, password managers ignored | YesRules for passwords and apps | YesPrivate items and apps you choose |
| Sync across your devices | NoKept on the Mac where you copied | YesiCloud: Mac, iPhone and iPad | No |
| Shared pinboards for a team | No | Yes | No |
| Part of a file manager | YesAlso in the drawer and the right sidebar | No | No |
| On the Mac App Store | Coming soon | YesAlso on Setapp | Yes$9.99 there, free on GitHub |
| Price | $49.99 once, up to 3 Macs, updates included | $3.99 a month, $29.99 a year or $99.99 for life | Free, open source |
| Free trial | 7 days | 7 days | Free |
What Paste and Maccy do better
Paste syncs your history through iCloud between your Mac, iPhone and iPad, sorts what you keep into pinboards — shared with your team if you like — and lets you edit an item before pasting it. Maccy costs nothing, is open source and does one job, lightly, from the menu bar.
If you copy on your iPhone and paste on your Mac, keep Paste. If all you want is a free history, Maccy is hard to beat.
What you get with Folia Files
⌃⌥V opens the history over the app you are in, without taking it away: search it, preview an item with the Space bar, press ↩ to paste or ⌥↩ to paste as plain text; ⌘1 to ⌘9 paste the first nine. Text can also be pasted transformed — in capitals, on one line, links cleaned of their tracking.
The last six items are in Folia Files' menu bar menu, and the history is a module of the drawer and the right sidebar too — next to the Shelf and your favorites.
⌃⌥V open the history⌥↩ paste as plain text⌘P pin
Private by design
What password managers and other apps mark as concealed or transient is never read, and password managers are ignored from the start. The history lives in a private folder on your Mac, left out of backups and never in iCloud. You choose how long items are kept, from a day to forever, and how many, from 50 to 500.
- Off until you turn it on
- No account, no server: nothing leaves your Mac
- Pause it whenever you like
Website edition and Mac App Store
The clipboard history is in both editions. To paste straight into other apps, macOS asks you once to let Folia Files send the ⌘V keystroke; without it, the item is copied and you press ⌘V yourself.
Questions
No. The history stays on the Mac where you copied, by design. If you need your clipboard on several devices, iPhone included, Paste does it through iCloud.
No. Folia Files is $49.99 once for up to 3 Macs, and the clipboard history comes with the whole file manager. Try it free for 7 days.
It comes with Folia Files and works from any app as long as Folia Files is open (it can start at login and stay in the menu bar).
Yes, but two histories would record the same copies. The one in Folia Files is off until you turn it on: leave it off if you keep another.
See for yourself, free for 7 days
Every feature, no account, no credit card. Then $49.99, once, every future update included — no subscription.
Prices and features checked on 5 October 2026, on the makers' websites, help pages, GitHub and the Mac App Store.