How to organize your clipboard history on a Mac automatically
A clipboard history grows by hundreds of clips a week. Searching works when you remember a word. When you don't, it helps if the clips you need are already grouped: every link from GitHub, every screenshot from this week, every email address and phone number you've copied.
Updated
Two ways to group clips
| Board | Smart board | |
|---|---|---|
| How clips get there | You add them: drag, or right-click and Add to Board | Rules add them: every clip that matches shows up |
| A clip can be on | One board | Any number of smart boards |
| Best for | Things you keep: signatures, addresses, brand colours | Things that keep arriving: links, screenshots, commands |
| Kept forever | Yes, by default | Clips stay in your history; the board just shows them |
In Maclip they are the same thing. A board becomes smart when you turn on Smart: rules add them, and it keeps anything you added by hand. Turn Smart off and the board goes back to holding only what you put there.
Make a smart board
- Open the Maclip dashboard. Next to Boards, click + and choose New Smart Board.
- Pick an icon, any SF Symbol or emoji, and a colour.
- Add rules, or start from a template such as Contact Details, Screenshots or Terminal Commands.
- Watch the preview fill as you go, then click Create Board.
Smart boards worth making
| Board | Rules |
|---|---|
| Dev links | Kind is Links · Website contains github |
| This week's screenshots | Kind is Images · Copied from Screenshot · Copied in the last 7 days |
| Contact details | Contains an email address, or a phone number, or a street address (match any) |
| Terminal commands | Code language is Shell · sorted by Recently Pasted |
| Most reused | Times pasted at least 3 · sorted by Most Pasted · show at most 20 |
| Work hours, no secrets | Copied on a weekday · Copied between 9 AM and 5 PM · except Sensitive |
Rules can also check words or a pattern in the text, the app or website a clip came from, the page title, tags, file type, length, and how long ago you copied or last pasted it.
Turn a search into a board
MaclipIf you keep running the same search, such as invoices from Mail, search once and click Save as Smart Board. Each filter becomes a rule. Turn on Show in the Cursor Popup and the board becomes a tab in the ⇧⌘V panel, one ⌃Tab away in any app.
File clips by app as you copy
App rules sort clips the moment you copy them: everything from Figma onto a Design board, a #work tag on everything from Slack, nothing saved from your bank. See app rules.
Questions
Can a Mac organize clipboard history on its own?
Not with the built-in clipboard. macOS 26 Tahoe adds a short history in Spotlight, but it can't group clips. A clipboard manager with smart boards, like Maclip, sorts clips into groups by rules as you copy.
What's the difference between a board and a smart board?
A board holds clips you add by hand, and each clip is on one board. A smart board shows every clip that matches its rules, so one clip can appear on several smart boards. Turning Smart off never deletes anything.
Does a smart board move or copy my clips?
Neither. It shows matching clips from your history where they already are. Delete a smart board and your clips are untouched.