Preferences

Copy/Paste Settings

What PasteDaemon keeps from the clipboard and for how long, which copies it leaves out, and what happens when it pastes for you.

The Copy/Paste pane, second in Preferences, is about the history itself: what a paste does, which copies are kept, how long they are kept, and which are left out. How the history is searched and the order it is listed in are on Search Settings, and the rest of Preferences is on General Settings.

Pasting

Automatically paste selection pastes the result straight back into the app you were in, rather than only putting it on the clipboard. This synthesises ⌘V, which macOS only permits for apps approved under Privacy & Security → Accessibility; the pane links to that setting. Everything else in the app works without the permission — this, the abbreviation watcher, stepping a list through successive pastes, and counting a ⌘V you press by hand toward sort:pasted are the only four things that need it.

The warning under the toggle appears whenever the permission is missing, whether or not automatic pasting is switched on, since a list that will not step is the likeliest reason to be looking here. Granting it takes effect on the next list dealt out; nothing needs restarting.

Paste without changing the clipboard is off until you switch it on. With it on, pasting a row from the history puts back what was on the clipboard once the paste has landed, so ⌘V still gives the last thing you copied. The row stays where it is in the history rather than moving to the top, so the top of the history and the clipboard go on agreeing.

It applies only when PasteDaemon pastes for you, so it is greyed out while Automatically paste selection is off — then using a row puts it on the clipboard for ⌘V, which is the point. It also leaves alone:

⌘C on a row, which asks for the row to be on the clipboard;
a row holding a list of several items, which is dealt out one item per paste and needs the clipboard for as long as that takes;
variables, actions and pipelines, whose results are new items in the history;
a paste that cannot happen for want of Accessibility permission, where the row is left on the clipboard so ⌘V still works.

If you copy something else in the moment before the old clipboard would come back, your new copy is kept and nothing is put back over it.

Between rows pasted as one is what goes between rows you pick out in the overlay and paste together with ⌘V: a new line (the default), a blank line, a space, a comma and a space, a tab, or — under Other… — text of your own. It syncs with your other settings. Pasting several rows as one has what arrives.

Copying

Bring a repeated copy back to the top is on by default. The history holds each thing once, so copying something it already holds moves that item to the top with the newer details of the copy. Switched off, the item stays where it is and as it was, so the history stays in the order things were first copied. The copy is still on the clipboard, and triggers still run on it. It applies to copies — including Keep in PasteDaemon and pastedaemon://add — and not to using a row from the overlay, which still brings that row up.

Put back the last copy when the clipboard is emptied is off until you switch it on. When another app leaves the clipboard empty — a password manager clearing it after a while, or an app that copies nothing when nothing is selected — the top of the history goes back on it, so ⌘V still pastes the last thing kept. It does not count as a copy: the item stays where it is and no trigger runs. Copies the app can't read are left alone, as is anything while recording is paused or from an excluded app, and a sealed item on top stays off the clipboard. Clearing the history still empties the clipboard.

Don't keep copies larger than is No limit to begin with, and offers 512 KB, 1 MB, 5 MB, 10 MB or 25 MB. A copy over it — its text, formatting, picture and app's data together — is not kept and no trigger runs on it, and the HUD says how large it was. It goes on the clipboard all the same. Without a limit of your own the fixed ones still hold: 32 MB for a picture or an app's own data.

Keep only copies made with the shortcut is off until you switch it on, and needs a Copy to the history chord set in Shortcuts first — without one it stays off and says so in red. With it on, an ordinary ⌘C goes to the clipboard and nowhere else — no history entry, no trigger — and the chord is how something is kept. While you are gathering, every copy is kept as usual, since gathering is asking for them.

Tag every new copy gives each copy a tag as it is kept, for collecting while you research without stopping to tag each find. Type the tag first — without one the switch stays off and says so in red — then switch it on here or with Tag New Copies in the menu bar, which shows a tick while it's on. Repeats are tagged too, and triggers see the tag. #research (or whatever you chose) in the search bar finds them afterwards. The tag and the switch belong to this Mac and don't sync.

Guess tags for new copies is off to begin with. When it's on, a new copy gets a tag that most of the copies like it carry, shown grey behind a dashed circle until you right-click the row to keep it or take it off (see Guessed tags). Only tags you've given to at least five copies are guessed. It needs Ask with ?, in Search.

Append with a second ⌘C is off until you switch it on. With it on, holding ⌘ and tapping C twice adds what you have selected to the end of the copy before it, on a line of its own, and puts the two on the clipboard together — so several pieces from around a page make one paste. What you append is not kept as an item of its own, and the item it grows keeps what it said before among its past values.

Nothing turns this on for you: it changes what ⌘C does in every app on your Mac. Noticing the second tap means watching the keyboard, which needs the same Accessibility permission automatic pasting needs — if it is missing, or macOS refuses the watch for some other reason, the row under the switch says so and links to the setting. It says nothing while the switch is off.

Appending to the copy before it has the whole of what counts as the gesture and what happens to the two copies.

How long things are kept

The history asks how long, and nothing else — there is no setting for how many items are kept, because there is no such limit.

Keep … for is one picker each for text, images, file lists and objects, offering 24 hours, 7 days, 1 month, 3 months or unlimited. They are asked separately because they are worth keeping for different lengths of time: a screenshot is bulky and rarely wanted tomorrow, a snippet of text costs nothing to keep for a month. The defaults are 3 months for text and file lists and 7 days for images and objects. Pins never expire, whatever these say. Sealed copies have a picker of their own, below.

Three one-off buttons sit beside them:

Clear Recent drops what was copied in the last 5 minutes, 15 minutes, hour or 24 hours — for the moment after you copied something that should never have been kept. It doesn't go to the trash: it's gone at once, along with any copies from those minutes you'd already deleted. If the newest copy is among them, the clipboard is emptied too, so ⌘V can't paste it. The menu bar's history submenu has it as well.
Clear Older Than offers the same four periods as the pickers, drops everything copied before that whatever kind it is, and says how many went.
Clear History empties it.

All three keep the pins, and Clear History offers Clear Pins Too beside it.

Keep sealed copies for — 1 hour, 24 hours, 7 days, 1 month, 3 months or As long as text, the default. A copy that a seal action or the Sensitive data copied trigger sealed is dropped once it is this old, or once it is older than text is kept for, whichever comes first — so this can only make a secret go sooner. A pinned one is kept. is:secret in the search bar lists them.

Clear history when PasteDaemon quits does what Clear History does every time you quit the app, keeping the pins. It only happens on a real quit: if the app is force-quit or crashes, the history stays. It is greyed out while this Mac syncs its history, because clearing then would delete it on every Mac on your iCloud account. Set Sync → Clipboard history to None to keep the history on this Mac, and it works again. Copies set to Allow Sync are kept when it clears, since they're on your other Macs too.

Clear history when recording is paused does the same when you turn recording off — with ⌘T in the overlay, Pause Recording in the menu bar, the API or the Shortcuts app — keeping the pins. A pause that ends on its own, Pause Recording For a few minutes or the next few copies, does not clear: that is how a password is kept out, and emptying the history to do it would be a strange price. It is off until you switch it on, and greyed out while this Mac syncs its history, for the reason above.

If you are upgrading from a version that had no retention, a notice above the pickers says what they are now set to and offers Use These Limits — which accepts them and sweeps then and there — or Keep Everything, which sets all three to unlimited. Nothing is dropped for its age until you answer it. Setting any period by hand counts as answering it too. Copying → Retention has the whole of how the sweep works.

Importing a history from another clipboard manager

Import…, in the History section, opens the window a first launch offers, with a line beside it naming the managers actually installed. Four are read directly — Alfred, Maccy, CopyQ and Flycut — Raycast from the file it exports, and Add a File… is the way in for everything else: a JSON list of strings, a JSON list of objects, one item to a line, or another PasteDaemon's history.json.

Each row says what its app is holding: how many items, how far back, and how many images or file clips cannot be read. Alfred's row also offers to bring its snippets in as abbreviations, with a tick of its own. Nothing of another app's is written to — a history kept in a database is copied aside before it is opened — and an import is an addition, so every other manager keeps its history exactly as it was.

Text only, from all of them. Images and file clips are each app's own business, stored under hashes and blobs whose layout is written down nowhere, so they are left where they are and the row says how many were left behind. Where an app records which app a copy was made in, that comes over. Where an app records no times at all — CopyQ usually, Flycut always — the order is kept and the times are invented one second apart ending just before now, deliberately recent so that the retention sweep cannot delete an imported history on the strength of times the app made up.

Everything is de-duplicated, within each app and across them, and interleaved with your history by date rather than appended, so an import obeys the retention exactly as a copy does. Afterwards you are told how many items you now have and which apps they came from.

Raycast comes in from its own export — see Bringing over a Raycast history. Paste, Pastebot and Copy'em keep theirs behind private schemas they are free to change in any release. Export from those and use Add a File….

If the manager you are importing from keeps its history for a length of time — which of the four only Alfred does — the window offers a checkbox to adopt that period for text and file lists. It starts ticked only when adopting it cannot cost you anything.

Bringing over a Raycast history

Raycast keeps its clipboard history encrypted, under a key in your keychain that belongs to Raycast. PasteDaemon does not ask for that key: handing one app another app's secret is what a credential thief asks for, and a prompt you should learn to refuse. Raycast will export the history for you instead.

In Raycast, run Export Settings & Data. Make sure Clipboard History is among what it exports, set a password, and save the file. Raycast asks for a password of at least eight characters. The file ends in .rayconfig.
In PasteDaemon's import window, click Choose Export… on the Raycast row — or Add a File… — and pick that file. If you gave it a password, you are asked for it. It is used to open the file and kept nowhere.
Import as you would from any other app.

Text, links and other text copies come over with the times Raycast recorded and, where the app is still installed, the app they were copied in. Pictures and files are left behind, and the row says how many. The row also offers the export's snippets, as abbreviations, with a tick of their own. If the password doesn't open it, you're asked again.

Delete the export when you are done. It holds your whole history, and Raycast settings besides, and with no password, anybody who has the file can read them.

Exporting your history

Export…, beside Import… in the History section, saves the history to a JSON file, newest first. Each item carries its text, when it was copied, the app it came from, whether it is pinned, and its tags and description. A file list is written as its paths.

Pictures, objects and sealed items are left out, and the message after saving says how many. A picture or an app's own data has no place in a text file, and a sealed item is kept encrypted precisely so that it is never written down in the clear. Text that carried an object is still exported, as its text.

The file is one Add a File… reads, so an export can be brought back into PasteDaemon on another Mac, with each item's text, time and source app. Pins, tags and descriptions are in the file for anybody reading it, but an import does not bring them over.

Excluded apps

A list of apps whose copies are not kept. Nothing copied while one of them is frontmost is recorded — no history entry, no past value, and no trigger runs on it. The copy still goes to the system clipboard, which is not this app's to interfere with; PasteDaemon simply does not look. Abbreviations are not watched for there either.

Add an app by name from the ones running now, or choose one from disk. It is remembered by bundle identifier, so renaming, moving or updating it changes nothing, and the name is stored beside it so an exclusion can still be read — and removed — after the app has been uninstalled.

Whoever was in front when the pasteboard changed is taken to be who copied. The pasteboard is polled, so a copy made and followed by an app switch inside a quarter of a second could be attributed to the app you switched to.

This is on top of, not instead of, the transient-copy convention: a password manager marking its transfers org.nspasteboard.ConcealedType is skipped whether or not it has been excluded.

Ignored types

A list of pasteboard types whose copies are not kept. A copy carrying any of them, on any of its items, is passed over the way a concealed one is: no history entry, and no trigger runs on it. It is empty to begin with.

Type a type and press Add, or pick one from From the Clipboard, which lists every type on the clipboard now — copy the thing you want left out, then come here and choose. The same menu offers com.apple.is-remote-clipboard, which is how a copy arriving from your iPhone, iPad or another Mac by Universal Clipboard is marked; adding it keeps those out of the history.

To see what a copy already in the history holds, run $1 | kind in the search bar (or $3 | kind for the third row): it lists the types the history kept, in the order an app pasting it reads them. A copy's markers aren't kept, so for those, copy it again and use From the Clipboard.

The list syncs with your other settings.