Maccy vs ClipBook (2026): Two Open-Source Clipboard Managers

What is ClipBook?

ClipBook is a clipboard history app for macOS built by Vladimir Ikryanov. It keeps everything you copy and gives you a two-pane window with a preview area, favourites, inline editing, and search that even looks inside images via OCR. In 2025 the developer open-sourced ClipBook to let users audit that data never leaves the device — an unusual move for a commercial app.

ClipBook is a paid application (with a trial). Its source is public for transparency, but the distributed app is sold rather than free, which is the main practical difference from Maccy.

What is Maccy?

Maccy is a free, open-source clipboard manager for macOS under the MIT license. It does one job — keep your copy history one keystroke away — and does it with a tiny footprint, a keyboard-first popup, and fuzzy search. There is no paid tier: every feature is available to everyone.

Where ClipBook leans into a visual preview-pane experience, Maccy leans into speed and minimalism: a single search field, instant results, and nothing else competing for attention.

Maccy vs ClipBook at a glance

Price and licensing

This is the clearest split. Maccy is free forever and MIT-licensed — you can download it, build it from source, or buy the identical version on the App Store to support development. ClipBook is a paid app; its code is open for inspection, but you pay for the packaged build.

Both being open-source means both are auditable. The difference is that Maccy is also free of charge, while ClipBook charges for the convenience build and its richer feature set.

Interface: minimal vs preview-pane

ClipBook shows a preview pane so you can verify the full content of an item before pasting — handy when you copy many near-identical snippets. Maccy keeps a compact list with a popup that appears at your cursor and disappears the instant you paste.

If you like seeing a large preview and editing items in place, ClipBook's UI is more generous. If you want the fastest possible 'summon, type, Enter' loop with zero visual overhead, Maccy is leaner.

Search, OCR, and recall

ClipBook's standout is search that includes text inside images via OCR, plus inline editing and merge-paste. Maccy focuses on fast fuzzy search across text, links, and rich content, with pinned favourites for the items you reuse daily.

For a researcher who copies screenshots and needs to find text within them later, ClipBook's OCR is a genuine advantage. For pure text-and-snippet recall at speed, Maccy is more than enough.

Privacy and security

Both apps are strong here and both are local-first: your history never leaves your Mac, and both respect the concealed-clipboard flag so password managers like 1Password are not recorded. ClipBook's open-sourcing was explicitly about provable privacy; Maccy has been MIT open-source from the start.

Practically, you can trust either on privacy. Maccy adds optional iCloud sync between your own Macs at no cost if you want history to follow you.

Performance and footprint

Maccy is built to be tiny — around 8 MB, near-zero idle CPU, and an instant popup even with thousands of items. ClipBook is also efficient but carries a heavier UI with its preview pane and image handling.

On an older Mac, Maccy's minimalism is the safer bet for staying completely out of the way.

Where ClipBook is the better choice

Choose ClipBook if you want a preview-pane workflow, inline editing, merge-paste, and especially OCR search inside images — and you do not mind paying for a polished, auditable app. Its richer interface suits people who treat the clipboard history as a working surface, not just a recall list.

Where Maccy wins

Choose Maccy if you want a free, open-source clipboard manager that is fast, minimal, and invisible until you need it. There is no purchase, no trial clock, and no feature gating — and you still get pinned items, fuzzy search, password-manager safety, and optional iCloud sync.

What about the built-in macOS Tahoe clipboard?

macOS 26 Tahoe added a basic clipboard history to Spotlight (⌘Space, then ⌘4). It is free and built in, but caps history at seven days with no pinning and no per-app exclusion, so dedicated tools like Maccy and ClipBook still do far more. See how the Tahoe Spotlight clipboard works.

The bottom line

Both are excellent, privacy-respecting, open-source clipboard managers — which is rare. If you want a richer preview-and-OCR experience and will pay for it, ClipBook is a fine choice. If you want the same privacy guarantees for free in a faster, more minimal package, Maccy is the easy pick. You can even try Maccy first, since it costs nothing.