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I am often copying and pasting various tidbits of information, and then forgetting to save it. I would copy something else and lose what I had in the clipboard before.

Is there some sort of built-in way to view the history of the clipboard, or do I have to install a program? If so, what program?

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90% accept rate
I've tried a few 3rd-party programs, but actually found none that clears its history based on time rather than based on some number of entries. I don't want my Mac to remember the last xx copy actions, but want it to remember the last xx minutes. (Or, even if the number of entries is limited: at least remove the history after some time.) – Arjan Aug 2 '09 at 12:26
@Arjan - sounds like you should write that app. – Darren Newton Aug 3 '09 at 12:12
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3 Answers

up vote 7 down vote accepted

There's a multitude of applications that do this, but no built-in one.

alt text

Clyppan, a simple application for clipboard history.

  1. Clyppan
    • Open source and free
    • Simple
  2. Jumpcut
    • Open source and free
    • Even simpler
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This may not be a requirement for everyone, but neither Clyppan nor Jumpcut have some time-limited history. (I just opened Clyppan after not using it for some time, and it gave me my history of May 24th...) – Arjan Aug 2 '09 at 12:59
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Clyppan is now proprietary... – thSoft Aug 4 '11 at 23:29
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up vote 5 down vote

I realise that the question has been answered, but here is another recommendation for a clipboard history manager:

ClipMenu

Menubar item:

alt text

Hovering menu (hotkey):

alt text

Apart from the menubar and floating window, it also has customisable 'actions' that allow you to manipulate text as you paste it (e.g., uppercase everything), and support for snippets to hold commonly pasted text.

In my experiences it is easily the best of the simple clipboard managers.

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This is a good one. – ybakos Dec 21 '10 at 17:46
I like that this one seems to handle images, and show them inline in the history too. – bacar Aug 20 '11 at 14:02
Its simple and free. – Mark Levison Nov 18 '11 at 2:54
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up vote 4 down vote

The perennial answer to OS X questions: Quıcĸsıɩⅴεʀ (note I link to the current builds as they work better under Leopard).

enter image description here

See these tutorials for more:

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this is amazing! – Pierre Spring Aug 22 '09 at 14:36
+1 So hard to explain QS, impossible to live without it – trolle3000 May 25 '10 at 12:44
Both the QS Shelf and Clipboard managers have been broken since Leopard came out. They will open continuously and annoyingly until you shut them off. – Brandon Sep 25 '11 at 20:35
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