How to Find & View the Clipboard History on Mac

The Mac clipboard is a virtual data storage location for information that is copied and pasted on a Mac computer. You can see what’s on your clipboard without having to paste it with the built-in Mac clipboard viewer. However, in this guide, you will learn how to find and view the clipboard history on Mac or MacBook.

Meanwhile, For flexibility, copy and paste have been groundbreaking. That might sound odd, considering how commonplace it is. Copy-pastes, all the time. But without this kind of functionality, we’d have to start from scratch on whatever we’re working on every time.

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Copy & Paste on Mac

Apple’s macOS allows you, like most modern operating systems, to copy text, pictures, or other data within different programs. In the same program or in another program, you can then fully paste the data elsewhere. There is also the data cutting choice, which removes it from its initial position and makes it available for paste.

Whenever you use Command + X (cut) or Command +C (copy), your Mac stores what you copy to the clipboard. This saved content is later made available when you use Command +V (paste) shortcut. But if we don’t paste it, we can lose it easily and need to get started again. The cool thing about the features of the clipboard is that it stores cut or copied material before you decide.

How to View Clipboard History on Mac

You can find the Clipboard on any Mac with the Finder App, and it runs in the background of your machine when you’re working.

Follow the two steps below to find and access clipboard history on your Mac.

Step 1. Open Finder.

Finder

Step 2. Click Edit from the top menu and select Show Clipboard.

View the Clipboard History on Mac

This is going to bring up the contents of the clipboard for you to review. The contents of the clipboard here are the results of your last copy operation on your Mac.

View the Clipboard History on Mac

How to Paste from Clipboard on Mac

If you hold down the Command key and click on the V key, your Mac will automatically paste the contents of the clipboard to the new destination.

If you don’t see the freshly copied content after the Command + V process, search your clipboard. The contents of the clipboard may have been deleted by mistake. You will need to use Command + C or Command + X keys to copy or cut back the content before you can paste it again.

How to View a Longer Clipboard History on Mac

You’ll need a third-party app to enable a true and view a longer clipboard history on your Mac. Meanwhile, the built-in clipboard stores one item and one item only. For the purpose of this guide, I will mention some of the best clipboard managers for Mac.

1. CopyClip-Clipboard History

CopyClip-Clipboard History

CopyClip-Clipboard History without a doubt one of the best Mac Clipboard Managers as you can change the number of clippings for Display and remember.

The easiest and most powerful clipboard manager for your Mac is CopyClip. Running discreetly from your menu bar, this app stores everything that you have copied or cut in the past, enabling you to quickly find the snippet of text you’ve been looking for.

2. FlyCut

FlyCut

Flycut is a developer-friendly and quick clipboard manager. It is based on Jumpcut, an open-source app. Flycut is an open source as well. Any time you copy Flycut pieces of code, it’s preserved in history. Even if you have anything different on your current clipboard, you can move it later using Shift-Command-V. You can change your preferences to the hotkey and other settings.

3. Paste

Paste

Paste has a peculiar interface since it can be reached from the menu bar, but when you click on the button, a list of clippings from the bottom of your Mac screen will swipe up. You can copy and paste the content from the bottom of the list into your Mac applications. Paste, however, is a paid app and therefore prevents users from making clippings; the app asks for payment when you want to copy and paste the data.

Wrapping Up 

That’s it. This is how you can view the clipboard history on Mac. You can easily find and access clipboard history from Finder on your Mac but the downside is that the built-in clipboard stores one item and one item only. To view a longer clipboard history then you need to download third-party apps like CopyClip, Flycut, and Paste.

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