ComparemacOS Tahoe
Tahoe remembers your clipboard for up to 7 days. Clipivo doesn’t forget.
macOS Tahoe added clipboard history to Spotlight. It is handy for recent copies, but it expires and it can’t pin. Here is how it compares with Clipivo, and when Spotlight is all you need.
Side by side
| Tahoe Spotlight history | Clipivo | |
|---|---|---|
| How long it remembers | 30 minutes, 8 hours or 7 days (you choose in System Settings) | Forever by default. Cleanup is optional and never touches pinned clips. |
| Pinning important clips | Not available | Pin with ⌘P, reorder, and find them in a Pinned view |
| Search | Basic Spotlight search | Substring, multi-word and filters: app:, type:, in:, is:pinned, date: |
| Text inside screenshots | No | On-device OCR makes screenshot text searchable |
| Formatting when you paste | Reported to paste as plain text | Keeps rich text, links and images, with ⇧↩ for plain text when you want it |
| Organising | No | Spaces, titles and tags |
| Opening it | ⌘Space, then ⌘4 | One shortcut, ⇧⌘V (you can change it) |
| Passwords and secrets | Skips content apps mark as concealed | Ignored apps, password managers skipped, likely secrets detected before they are saved |
| Where the data lives | On your Mac | On your Mac. No account, no cloud, no analytics. |
| Sync to iPhone or iPad | No | Not yet. Planned, opt-in and end-to-end encrypted. |
| Price | Free, built in | Free beta. Source available. |
Spotlight details come from Apple’s settings and third-party reviews of macOS 26 and may change in later updates. Clipivo details describe version 0.9.6-beta.
Spotlight is enough if…
- You only need to recover something you copied a few minutes or hours ago.
- You never need to keep a snippet, address or link around.
- You don’t copy screenshots, images or formatted text very often.
A clipboard manager is worth it if…
- You want to find what you copied three weeks ago.
- You reuse the same links, commands and replies and want them pinned.
- You want to search the words inside screenshots.
- You paste into documents and want links and formatting kept.
Questions
- Does macOS Tahoe have clipboard history?
- Yes. Tahoe added a clipboard history to Spotlight. Open Spotlight and press ⌘4 to see recent copies. Since macOS 26.1 you can choose how long it keeps them (30 minutes, 8 hours or 7 days) and clear it from System Settings.
- How long does the Tahoe clipboard history keep items?
- Up to 7 days at most, depending on the setting you choose. Anything older than that window is gone, and there is no way to pin an item so it stays.
- Is Spotlight clipboard history enough?
- For “what did I copy a minute ago?” it is. If you want to find something from three weeks ago, keep important snippets, search inside screenshots or keep formatting, a dedicated clipboard manager does more.
- Is Clipivo free?
- Clipivo is a free beta for macOS 14 and later. Its source is available on GitHub under its own license; it is source-available, not open source.
- Does Clipivo sync to my iPhone?
- Not yet. Sync is planned as an opt-in, end-to-end encrypted option. Today your history stays on your Mac, and you can move it to another Mac with an export file.
Want the details? See every Clipivo feature or read the privacy details.