Maccy vs Flycut (and other free apps)
Flycut is a well-known free clip stack for developers. Maccy is the more capable free all-rounder. Here is how they compare — with CopyClip, Clipy, and Jumpcut folded in for the full free picture.
What Flycut is
Flycut is a free, open-source “clip stack” originally aimed at developers, descended from the classic Jumpcut. It keeps recent text copies and pastes them back with a shortcut. It is dependable and minimal — but development is quiet and its feature set is narrow.
What Maccy is
Maccy is also free and open source, but more complete: fast fuzzy search across a deep history, pinned items, an ignore list, plain-text paste, and automatic skipping of password-manager entries — all native and actively maintained.
Maccy vs the free field
| Flycut | Clipy | CopyClip | Jumpcut | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Open source | Yes (MIT) | Yes | Yes | No |
| Fuzzy search | Yes | No | Basic | Basic |
| Pinned items | Yes | No | Snippets | No |
| Images / rich text | Yes | No | No | Limited |
| Password-manager safety | Yes | Partial | Partial | Partial |
| Actively maintained | Yes | Quiet | Quiet | — |
Where Flycut (and the others) pull ahead
Honestly, not on features — their appeal is extreme simplicity. Flycut and Jumpcut are tiny text-only clip stacks; CopyClip is a basic menu-bar list; Clipy adds nested snippet menus. If you want the absolute minimum and nothing else, any of them will do.
Where Maccy wins
Search, pinning, image and file support, privacy controls, and ongoing maintenance. For the same price (free), Maccy gives you a tool that scales with a large history and protects your passwords. For most people it is simply the better free choice. See the broader best free clipboard manager round-up.
Which should you choose?
Pick Maccy unless you have a specific reason to want a barebones clip stack. If you currently use Flycut, Clipy, CopyClip, or Jumpcut and want more search and safety without paying, Maccy is the upgrade.
What is Flycut?
Flycut is a free, open-source clipboard manager for macOS based on Jumpcut, originally released around 2010. It stores clipboard history, is keyboard-navigable, and costs nothing. On paper, Flycut and Maccy look similar. In practice, they are very different.
Side-by-side comparison
| Feature | Maccy | Flycut |
|---|---|---|
| Active maintenance | Yes — 2026 updates | Last meaningful update: ~2020 |
| macOS Tahoe compatible | Yes | Unknown/unreliable |
| Images & files | Yes | Text only |
| App exclusion (privacy) | Yes — per-app ignore list | No |
| Regex search | Yes | No |
| Pinned items | Yes | No |
| iCloud sync | Optional | No |
| Plain-text paste | Yes | No |
| Price | Free | Free |
| Open source | Yes — MIT, active | Yes — abandoned |
The maintenance problem
Flycut was last meaningfully updated around 2019–2020. It has not been updated for Apple Silicon, for the privacy changes in recent macOS versions, or for the UI framework updates in Ventura, Sonoma, Sequoia, or Tahoe. Users report various crashes and permission issues on modern Macs.
Maccy is actively maintained with regular releases. The 2.7.3 release in late 2025 includes Apple Silicon native support, macOS Tahoe compatibility, and all modern macOS permission handling.
The only reason to use Flycut
Flycut might be your only option if you are running a very old version of macOS (pre-Ventura) that Maccy no longer supports. For any current macOS version, Maccy is the strictly superior choice at the same price (free).
Migrating from Flycut to Maccy
- Install Maccy from maccymanager.com/download
- Grant Accessibility permission
- In Flycut, note any pinned items you want to keep. Copy each one — Maccy captures it. Pin it in Maccy with Cmd+P.
- Disable or uninstall Flycut to avoid shortcut conflicts