← Clipory

The complete guide

Every feature

All of Clipory on one page, including the parts people only find after weeks of use. Grouped the way you use them, with the default keys beside each one.

78 features

The basics

The whole loop: copy something, summon Clipory, find it, paste it. Everything else on this page builds on these.

Summon from anywhere

One press over any app and the popup appears; the same press (or Esc) puts it away. The menu-bar icon opens it too.

⌥Space

Type to search

There is no “focus search” shortcut because the search field is always focused. Every keystroke already lands there, and results narrow as you type.

Paste the selected clip

Lands in the app you were in before the popup opened. Double-clicking a row or a grid tile does the same.

↵

Fly through the list

⌥↑ and ⌥↓ jump five clips, ⌘↑ and ⌘↓ move a page. ⌃P and ⌃N work out of the box as second keys.

↑↓

Paste a recent clip by number

The nine most recent clips carry number slots: ⌘2 pastes the second row without touching the arrows.

⌘1–9

Paste a pinned clip by number

The same idea counted over your pins: stable slots for the things you paste every day, in the order you arranged them.

⌃1–9

Copy without pasting

Puts the clip on the clipboard and, by default, closes the window (“Copy & close window” in Settings → Paste). ⇧⌘C copies the plain text, or a screenshot’s recognized text.

⌘C

Esc backs out one step at a time

It clears a multi-selection, then leaves the details page, then clears the search, then the active filter, and only closes the window when nothing is left. Backing all the way out means you’re done: the next open starts fresh.

Esc

Close in one keystroke

From anywhere. ⌘Q also just closes the popup, so a reflex ⌘Q next to ⌘W can’t quit the app.

⌘W

A twenty-second grace period

Clicked away or switched apps by accident? Re-summon within about twenty seconds and your search text, filters, selection, scroll position, even an open details page are exactly where you left them.

The cheat sheet

Every shortcut on one card, drawn live from your own bindings. Rebind a chord and the sheet shows the new one. Press any key to close it.

⌘?

Paste, your way

Plain, rich, terminal-safe, or hands-off: the paste adapts, not you.

Paste as plain text

Strips formatting on the way out. On an image, it pastes the recognized text instead of the picture.

⇧↵

Send an image to the terminal

A dedicated paste for handing a screenshot to a terminal app, delivered the way terminals expect it rather than as a stream of junk characters.

⌃↵

Preserve formatting & inline images

Off by default, Clipory pastes plain text. Turn it on (Settings → Paste) and a copy’s full styled payload is kept and replayed verbatim on paste and drag; such clips carry a “Rich content — Preserved” badge in their details.

Tidy text on the way out

“Trim whitespace” and “Straighten smart quotes” (both off by default) clean a clip as it pastes, so curly quotes from a chat app stop breaking your code.

Press ↵ to copy instead

One setting flips the grammar: ↵, double-click, and the number slots copy and close instead of pasting, for when you want the clip in hand rather than fired into the app behind the popup.

Used clips float to the top

Pasting or copying a clip moves it to the top of the list, so what you just used is where you expect it. Turn it off in Settings → Paste if you prefer strict copy order.

Restore previous clipboard

Off by default a pasted clip stays on the system clipboard, so a manual ⌘V repeats it. Turn this on and Clipory puts your prior clipboard back after each paste.

Keep the window open

A togglable mode that turns the popup into a shelf: clicking into other apps, pasting, and copying no longer dismiss it, and each paste lands in whatever app is frontmost at that moment. Great for serial form-filling and drag-out sessions. While it’s on, pastes don’t reshuffle the list, so a ⌘1, ⌘2, ⌘3 run keeps its slots. Toggle it from the menu-bar menu, the shortcut, or the footer chip.

⌃⌘K

The footer knows where ↵ will land

The Paste hint carries the icon of the app your paste is going to, tracked live if you switch apps while the popup is open.

Act on a clip

Beyond pasting: every verb a clip supports, one keystroke each.

The actions menu

Everything about the selected clip in one grouped menu: paste and copy variants, edit, pin, note, collections, save, share, delete. Each row shows its live shortcut, and the shortcuts fire even while the menu is open. Right-clicking a clip opens the same menu and focuses that row, Finder-style.

⌘↩

Open, reveal, or search

One key, three verbs: a link opens in your browser, a file reveals in Finder, and anything else searches the web (a screenshot searches its recognized text). Pick Google, DuckDuckGo, or Bing in Settings → General.

⌘L

Save to a file

Exports an image’s picture, otherwise the clip’s text, with a meaningful default name like “Safari 2026-06-17 at 14.32.07.png”.

⌘S

Share

Sends the clip to Messages, Mail, AirDrop, or anything else in the macOS share sheet.

⌘⇧S

Drag anywhere

Every row and tile is draggable: files and images travel as real files, rich clips carry every representation, and an image can land as its recognized text where only text is accepted. Drag is paste, everywhere.

Select many at once

⌘-click or ⇧-click builds a set, then copy, delete, save, or share all of it; the actions menu retitles to “Copy 4 Clips” and friends. A bulk delete is undoable.

Delete without fear

⌘X deletes the selected clip (you can also bind plain ⌫), and ⌘Z brings it back, bulk deletes included.

⌘X⌘Z

Six kinds of clip

Text, links, code, images, colors, files: recognized on arrival and treated on their own terms.

Sorted on arrival

Every copy is classified as text, link, code, image, color, or file. No tagging on your part. Edit a clip and it re-classifies on save: fix a broken URL and it becomes a link again.

Images that read themselves

On-device OCR runs on every image. The recognized text is searchable, copyable (⇧⌘C), pasteable (⇧↵), web-searchable (⌘L), and editable if the recognition missed a word.

Colors get swatches

Copy #B5453A or rgb(181, 69, 58) and the row shows a real swatch. The details add the closest named color and whether white or black text is legible on it, with the contrast ratio.

Code looks like code

Detected by structure, with a language guess (Swift, Python, JavaScript, HTML, C++) and a line count in the details.

Links lead with the URL

The full address as selectable text with the site’s favicon and domain. No fetched page previews, no network calls on your history.

Files show their contents

An image file renders its picture, a video its poster frame, a document its icon. The side preview shows what’s inside, like a text file’s first lines, not just a name and path.

JSON, formatted

A clip holding JSON gets a Raw ⇄ Formatted toggle in its details: re-indented for reading, stored and pasted exactly as copied.

The side preview

Rest on a row and a card floats beside the list with the full content, enough to confirm it’s the right clip without opening it. Turn it off in Settings → General if you prefer a bare list.

Grid view

Images, files, and colors can lay out as tiles; the toggle appears whenever a visual type filter is active. Double-clicking a tile pastes it, and ⌘D opens its details.

⌘G

Pins, notes & collections

Three layers of order, all optional: keep, annotate, group.

Pin what matters

Pinned clips sit in their own section at the top, never age out of the Free retention window, and survive “clear history” sweeps. They’re also the ⌃1–9 paste slots.

⌘P

Arrange your pins

⇧↑ and ⇧↓ move a pin one step, ⌥⇧ jumps it five, and ⌘⇧↑ or ⌘⇧↓ sends it straight to the top or bottom, so the ⌃1 slot is always exactly what you decided it is.

⇧↑⇧↓

Notes on anything

Attach a note inline on the row or in the details: a title for a screenshot, a reminder of where a snippet came from. Notes are searchable, and in the narrow details layout the note leads like a title.

⌘N

Edit a clip in place

Fix a typo, trim a snippet, or correct a screenshot’s recognized text, all without re-copying. Edits de-duplicate against your history (with a “keep both” path) and ⌘Z undoes a save.

⌘E

Collections, curated

Hand-picked groups: ⌥⌘A files the selected clip (or a whole multi-selection) through a searchable picker, and ⌘⇧N creates a new collection from anywhere.

⌥⌘A

Collections that fill themselves

Smart collections match rules instead: contains, matches regex, note contains, has a note, type is, from app. Each condition can Include or Exclude, combined with All or Any. A clip can belong to any number of collections; none of them are copies.

Browse collections

Opens the Collections menu; while it’s up, ⌘1–9 jump straight to a collection. From the list, ⌥← and ⌥→ cycle through collections without the menu.

⌘O

Color-coded rows

Give a collection a color and every clip in it carries a small corner tag and gutter dot in the list, so “the blue one” becomes scannable without reading.

Open filtered to the current app

An off-by-default mode for heavy per-app workflows: each popup open starts scoped to the app you’re in, shown as the removable chip, with the full history always one Esc away.

The details page

One keystroke deeper: the full clip, its history, and its numbers.

Open and close

→ opens the selected clip’s details (⌘D works everywhere, including the grid); ← or Esc returns to the list exactly where you were.

→←

Read with the keyboard

↑↓ scroll the content, ⌥↑↓ by a page, ⌘↑↓ to the ends. In the two-column layout ⇥ switches which column the keys drive, answering with a flash of that column’s scroll thumb.

⇥

Every clip tells its stats

Characters, words, lines, and a language guess for text; dimensions, format, and size for images; URL and domain for links; hex, closest name, and contrast for colors; name and path for files. Re-copied clips show how many times, with first and last.

Copy just your selection

Select part of the text and ⌘C copies that, not the whole clip.

⌘C

Room grows with the window

Drag the popup larger and the extra space goes to the content; an image’s preview grows with the window instead of stopping at a fixed size. The size is remembered (reset in Settings → General).

Your keys, your rules

The defaults are a starting point. The bindings are yours.

Rebind nearly everything

Every ⌘, ⌃, or ⌥ command on this page is recordable in Settings → Shortcuts, including the global hotkey. Hints, menus, and the cheat sheet all follow a rebind instantly.

Clear any shortcut

Press ⌫ while recording and the slot empties, even the global hotkey. The menu-bar icon then locks visible, so Clipory can’t become unreachable. Cleared commands keep working from menus and buttons; swapping two chords is just clear one, record both.

⌫

Second keys for the arrows

Each arrow can carry an alias: ⌃P and ⌃N come bound to ↑↓, and vim’s ⌃H, ⌃J, ⌃K, ⌃L all fit. An alias is a true twin: ⌃⌥N jumps five rows, ⌃⌘N pages, and it follows the arrows everywhere they work.

⌃P⌃N

Conflicts get caught

Recording a chord the system or another Clipory command already owns is flagged on the spot instead of silently colliding, including the chords the details page uses.

Privacy & storage

Your history is yours: filtered on the way in, encrypted at rest.

Sensitive content never lands

Passwords, one-time codes, and anything an app marks concealed or transient are skipped automatically. “Ignore password managers” (on by default) skips 1Password, Keychain, and similar.

Exclude any app

Add apps to the excluded list and nothing copied while they’re active is recorded, even if you switch away immediately after copying.

Blur sensitive data

Card numbers, tokens, and secrets inside URLs render masked in the list and previews (on by default). The details page always shows the real content.

Pause capture

One toggle in Settings or the menu-bar menu and Clipory stops recording until you resume; the history you have stays put.

Clear when your Mac locks

An off-by-default wipe at every lock that spares your deliberate keeps: pinned clips, noted clips, and clips filed in a manual collection survive; everything else goes.

Encrypted at rest

History lives in an encrypted database on this Mac, its key in your Keychain. No account, no server-side history.

Encrypted backup & restore

Pro exports your whole history as an encrypted backup file. Restoring merges into your current history; a newer note or your pin order is never clobbered by an older copy.

Housekeeping on your terms

Settings → Storage shows exactly how many items you hold and their size on disk, with “Clear all” and a delete-by-date-range flow when you want a fresh start.

Make it yours

The popup, sized, placed, themed, and translated to taste.

Appearance & themes

System, light, or dark, plus a set of color themes with their own accents. “Reduce transparency” follows your macOS setting, or force it on.

Interface size & list dressing

A size control scales the whole popup. “Larger thumbnails” enlarges image rows in the mixed list, “Hide type icons” strips the leading glyphs for a barer look.

Window placement

Open at its last position or at your cursor. Drag any edge to resize; the size sticks until you reset it.

A copy chime, if you want one

An off-by-default sound confirms the moment a copy is captured.

Menu bar & login

Launch at login, keep or hide the menu-bar icon (it stays visible while no global hotkey is set), and reach Open, Keep Window Open, Pause Capture, Clear History, and Quit from the icon’s right-click menu.

Eight languages

English, 日本語, 简体中文, 繁體中文, Deutsch, Français, Español, 한국어. Switch in-app; dates follow your language and times stay on a 24-hour clock.

Quiet updates

The direct-download app checks daily and updates in place when you say so, never forced. The App Store edition updates through Apple.

Free & Pro

Every feature above is in both. Pro removes the two limits.

Free is the whole app

Search, OCR, filters, pins, notes, collections, every shortcut, all of it. The only limits: 50 clips, kept 14 days.

Pro lifts the limits

Unlimited history, retention you control (including “keep pinned & annotated clips forever”), and encrypted backup & restore. A one-time purchase, with no subscription and no account.

Every key on this page is the default. Nearly all of them are rebindable in Settings → Shortcuts, and pressing ⌫ while recording clears one. Shortcut hints across the app always show your own bindings.