MacBook Clipboard History: Tips and tricks to increase developer productivity

There are two types of developers: those who use a Windows laptop and those who use a MacBook. There is often a lot of debate about which one is the best. This can be a topic for the next article. 

I recently switched to a Mac, and while learning how to use it and discovering some shortcuts, the first question that came to my mind was, “Does Mac have clipboard history?”

After a few failed attempts, I realized that MacBook does not save clipboard history, and as someone who codes for a living and for fun, I needed my Cmd C + Cmd V experience to be seamless.

I found a way to do it, and I am writing this article so that you do not have to waste any more time and can get a solution that works.

TLDR;

We use a tool called Pieces for Developers that acts as our clipboard manager and also assists in coding-related tasks.

How to retrieve clipboard history in Mac 

To use the clipboard functionality on Mac, press ⌘ + C to copy, then ⌘ + V to paste.

This may be enough for various situations, but it can also be pretty limiting to your productivity. 

The limitations of the functionality become very evident when you need to paste something you copied an hour ago, but you’ve already overwritten that piece of text by copying something else. There’s no way for you to retrieve it. 

Then you end up going back to find what you initially saved and copying it all over again.

Here’s how you can access clipboard history in Mac:

• Select the Edit menu of your Finder

• Then click Show Clipboard

• Accessing your Mac’s clipboard history

• What you’ll see is a simple text file showing only the last thing you copied.

• You can also use the Mac shortcut for clipboard history: ⇧Shift + ⌘Cmd + V. 

Once you realize how limiting your Mac’s clipboard history can be, you may feel the need for a better solution. One that will allow you to manage everything you’ve copied in an organized way and not worry about overwriting your saves.

How to fix the clipboard if it isn’t working

To get the most out of Mac’s clipboard, make sure that the basic functionality is working seamlessly. 

Here are some quick troubleshooting methods that might come in handy if you ever face any problems with the clipboard:

• Restart the clipboard process: Press Command + Q to quit the app.

• Restart your computer: As clichéd as it may sound, restarting your computer can help fix temporary glitches that may appear.

• Update macOS: Keeping your macOS updated to the latest version can help in getting rid of existing bugs.

• Check Activity Monitor: Force quit any application from Activity Monitor that might be using the clipboard excessively.

  • Use the keyboard shortcut ⌘ + spacebar to open Spotlight, then type "Activity Monitor” to access it.

• Reset the clipboard: You can also reset the clipboard from the terminal using the commands: pbcopy < /dev/null and pbpaste > /dev/null.

💡To handle these performance issues, view clipboard history on a Mac, or recover clipboard history on a Mac, and yet best would be to use a clipboard manager.

What is a clipboard manager?

As a developer, you’re always copy-pasting snippets of code from various sources. How many snippets of code have you copied from Stack Overflow or CodePen?

How many blocks of code do you move from one place to another every single day? How many lines of code do you share with your peers to solve your project challenges?

A Mac clipboard manager is simply a tool to power up all your copy-pasting in a safe, efficient way.

Imagine you copied an important code snippet from Stack Overflow and accidentally overwrote it. Or you want to save a block of code and use it again in an hour without having to worry about where you can store it.

Your clipboard manager has you covered. It allows you to store, organize, and view your recently copied items, and then use them whenever you need them.

There is no clipboard history feature on Mac nor is there a context menu to access the history. You should look for a tool that can improve your overall developer productivity. It should not only save all your copied snippets but also manage them for easy access and use the snippet as context for AI-assisted coding. One such tool is Pieces.

It can help with:

• Safely storing all code snippets with just one click.

• Automatically searching through your saved snippets and assisting you in research.

• Updating the snippets with additional information, like the website the snippet came from, the language it uses, tags, etc.

How to use Pieces to manage your MacOS clipboard history

1. Download the Pieces for Developers desktop app. Once downloaded, the app will open, showing you a menu where you can see all of your saved snippets.

2. To save a snippet inside Pieces for Developers, you can either paste it (⌘ + V) directly into the app, or you can download one of the Pieces for Developers IDE integrations. 

With these add-ons, you’ll be able to save your snippets to Pieces for Developers directly from your favorite code editor.

For example, when using Pieces for VS Code, once you decide to save a snippet, you just need to highlight it and then press ⇧+⌘ + V on your Mac to see your snippet appear directly in Pieces for Developers.

3. After this step, this is what all the snippets you saved will look like.

4. As you can see, with just one click, you were able to safely store your snippet, which you can now refer to in the future whenever you want, without fear of losing it. 

It also stores useful information for each of your snippets, like where the snippet came from, its tags, its formatting, its language, any Related Links or Related People, GitHub Context, and more.

This way, it will be much easier for you to search through all of your important notes and make sense of your daily chaos while bypassing your Mac clipboard history altogether.

If you want to search for a specific bit of code, simply type your desired search in the dedicated search bar at the top of the app.

What else is there? 

Coding in 2025 goes beyond copy-pasting. We have AI tools that help us think and even auto-complete code. Macs are powerful machines, and if used correctly, they can help you increase your developer productivity.

Here are some articles that you can read to make the best use of a Mac and also get to know more about Pieces:

• Keyboard Shortcuts for Programmers that Speed up Development

• Minimizing the Cost of Context Switching: Time Management Strategies for Developers

• How to Store Code Snippets (and 10x your Developer Productivity)

This article was first published on May 16th, 2022, and was improved by Haimantika Mitra as of January 13th, 2025, to improve your experience and share the latest information.