How to clear clipboard history on Mac

Clear the system clipboard (the last copy)

macOS does not keep a history by default, so “clearing” it just means replacing the current item. The simplest way: select a blank space or an empty line and press ⌘ C. Whatever sensitive thing you had copied is now gone from the pasteboard.

Clear your history in Maccy

If you run Maccy, your copies are stored as a searchable history, so you may want to clear that too.

1. Click the Maccy icon in the menu bar (or press ⌘ ⇧ C).
2. Choose Clear to remove unpinned history.
3. To remove everything including pinned items, hold ⌥ while choosing Clear (Clear all).

Pinned items are kept by a normal Clear by design, so you do not lose your saved snippets unless you explicitly clear all. See pinned items and favorites.

Clear automatically

For ongoing hygiene, set a smaller history size limit so old items are purged automatically, or reduce how long items are kept, in Settings → Storage. Details in history retention and size limits.

Stop sensitive copies being stored at all

Better than clearing after the fact: prevent capture in the first place. Add sensitive apps to Settings → Ignore, and remember Maccy already skips password-manager entries automatically. See the ignored-apps guide and does Maccy see your passwords.

Removing Maccy entirely

If you want every trace gone, including the history database, follow how to completely uninstall Maccy.

Does macOS have a clipboard history to clear?

macOS has no built-in clipboard history. The built-in clipboard holds exactly one item — the most recently copied thing. To “clear” the default macOS clipboard, just copy anything (a space character, a period) and the previous item is gone.

If you are trying to clear a clipboard history, you need a clipboard manager like Maccy. If you have Maccy installed, your history is searchable and clearable. If you do not have Maccy, there is no history to clear.

How to clear Maccy clipboard history

Clear everything at once

1. Press ⌘⇧C to open Maccy
2. Press ⌘A to select all items
3. Press Delete
4. Maccy asks you to confirm — click Delete

Note: Pinned items are not deleted by this action. Unpin them first (⌘P on each pinned item) if you want to clear everything.

Clear a single item

1. Open Maccy
2. Highlight the item you want to remove
3. Press ⌘Delete

Clear via Preferences

1. Open Maccy → Preferences
2. Go to the Storage tab
3. Click Clear History

Auto-clear history on quit

Maccy can automatically clear all history every time it quits or the Mac restarts:

1. Open Maccy Preferences → History
2. Enable Clear History on Quit

This is useful for shared Macs or high-security environments where clipboard data should not persist between sessions. Note: this also clears pinned items if they are not synced to iCloud.

Clearing the macOS clipboard (the single-item clipboard)

To clear the current item on the macOS clipboard (what Cmd+V would paste):

# In Terminal, clears the clipboard to empty:
pbcopy < /dev/null

This replaces whatever is on the clipboard with nothing. Cmd+V after this will paste nothing (or produce no action, depending on the app).

You can also add this as a Shortcut action: Set Clipboard to “” (empty text). Pair with a keyboard shortcut for a quick “secure my clipboard” action after copying sensitive data.

Privacy: what happens to cleared history

When you delete items from Maccy, they are removed from the SQLite database immediately. They are not stored in any cloud service (unless you have iCloud sync enabled), and there is no recycle bin or recovery mechanism. Deletion is permanent.

If you have iCloud sync enabled, deletion syncs to all your Macs — clearing on one Mac clears the same items on your other Macs within a few seconds.