A fast, keyboard-first, privacy-respecting clipboard manager for macOS.
Like a capybara that quietly keeps everything you copy — calm, friendly, always there.
Copybara lives in your menu bar and remembers your clipboard history. Hit a global hotkey, type a few letters, press Return — it pastes straight into the app you were working in. Everything stays local. Nothing goes to the cloud.
It's an independent, native clipboard manager built from scratch in Swift/SwiftUI.
Copying things is constant. Losing what you copied ten seconds ago is annoying. A clipboard manager should be instant, invisible, and trustworthy — and do exactly one job well. That is the entire scope of Copybara.
- Keyboard-first — the mouse is optional; everything works from the keyboard.
- Local-only — history never leaves the device; no accounts, no sync, no telemetry.
- Lightweight — a menu-bar agent that stays out of the way and sips resources.
- Instant — open and search with zero perceptible delay.
- Background clipboard monitoring (text).
- Local history with a configurable size limit.
- Menu-bar icon + global hotkey to open (default ⌘⇧V).
- Instant fuzzy search over history.
- Arrow-key navigation, Return to paste into the active app.
- Clear history; launch at login.
- Pin favorite items, delete individual clips, quick-paste with ⌘1–9.
- Images, rich text (RTF), and file references; paste-without-formatting (⌥⇧↩).
- Ignore passwords (
ConcealedType), transient types, and an app blocklist. - Side preview panel on hover / →, with source app, time, and copy count.
- Search modes (fuzzy / exact / regex) and sorting.
- Liquid Glass appearance on macOS 26 (toggleable), with a "Show icon in: Menu bar / Dock / Both" and popup-position setting.
- Snippets/templates, multiple paste formats. Updates install inside the app via Sparkle — menu → Check for Updates…, then Install Update.
- macOS 12.0 (Monterey) or later. Newer-OS APIs are adopted behind
if #availablechecks so the app runs everywhere down to 12. - Accessibility permission — required only so Copybara can paste into the frontmost app (it synthesizes ⌘V). Copybara never reads the screen or other apps' contents.
| Concern | Choice |
|---|---|
| Language / UI | Swift + SwiftUI (AppKit for the menu bar & window) |
| App type | Menu-bar agent (LSUIElement), optional Dock icon |
| Architecture | VOODO (View · Observable Object · Data Object) for screens + a service layer |
| Persistence | Core Data (baseline for macOS 12+) |
| Clipboard | NSPasteboard change-count polling |
| Global hotkey | KeyboardShortcuts |
| Settings | Defaults |
| Paste | CGEvent synthesized ⌘V |
| Launch at login | SMAppService (13+) with a login-item fallback on 12 |
See docs/ARCHITECTURE.md for the full design and
docs/CONCEPT.md for the product concept.
- Concept — what Copybara is and why.
- Architecture — modules, data flow, conventions.
- Roadmap — milestones and scope.
- Release — signing, notarization, appcast.
- Monetization — funding strategy (planning).
Copybara uses XcodeGen to generate the
Xcode project from project.yml (the .xcodeproj is not checked in).
brew install xcodegen
git clone https://github.com/ziqq/Copybara.git
cd Copybara
xcodegen generate
open Copybara.xcodeprojThen pick your signing team in Signing & Capabilities and run. On first paste, grant Accessibility in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility.
You don't need one to use Copybara yourself. Sign in Xcode with a free Apple ID (Personal Team) and run — it's signed locally and runs on your Mac indefinitely (the iOS 7-day limit doesn't apply to Mac apps you build locally).
To keep the Accessibility permission across rebuilds, put your team in a
git-ignored Config/Local.xcconfig (DEVELOPMENT_TEAM = XXXXXXXXXX); ad-hoc
builds lose it on every rebuild.
Releases starting with 0.1.6 use one stable certificate, with a regression check across different versions. Migrating from an older ad-hoc release requires removing the old Accessibility entry and adding the installed app once.
To build a DMG without a certificate, run ./scripts/build_dmg.sh (no
DEVELOPMENT_TEAM or COPYBARA_CODE_SIGN_IDENTITY); the app is ad-hoc signed.
It writes build/Copybara-<version>.dmg and checks the image after creating it
(app present, Applications link, code signature intact).
It runs on your Mac; on other Macs, Gatekeeper blocks it — open via
right-click → Open, or clear the quarantine flag:
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Copybara.appA paid account ($99/yr) is only needed to ship a signed, notarized DMG that
installs cleanly for others — see docs/RELEASE.md.
Run the tests from the command line:
xcodebuild -project Copybara.xcodeproj -scheme Copybara -destination 'platform=macOS' \
-enableCodeCoverage YES testCI runs the unit tests with coverage and uploads it to Codecov on every push.
✅ v0.2 feature-complete — capture (text/image/RTF/files), keyboard-driven search
(fuzzy/exact/regex), paste (with a plain-text option), pin, delete, per-item
quick-paste, privacy filters + app blocklist, and clear commands. Remaining work
is polish and release (icon, onboarding, auto-update). See docs/ROADMAP.md.
Contributions are welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md and the
changelog.
If Copybara is useful to you, consider supporting its development:
See docs/MONETIZATION.md for the funding strategy.
Copybara License © 2026 Anton Ustinoff. All rights reserved.
Personal use and internal use within companies are permitted, including private modifications. Redistribution of the original or modified source code or binaries, even for free, requires the copyright holder's prior written permission. Selling, paid distribution, and inclusion in paid products or services require separate written permission.
The source is available to inspect and build; it is not licensed under MIT. Third-party dependencies keep their own licenses; see THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES. The limited rights to view and fork a public repository under GitHub's terms remain unaffected.