How to keep clipboard history forever on Mac

1. Raise (or maximise) the size limit

Maccy keeps a maximum number of items and purges the oldest beyond it. To keep history far longer, open Settings → Storage and increase the limit substantially. The higher it is, the deeper back your searchable history reaches. See retention and size limits for exactly how this works.

2. Pin what truly matters

Even with a high limit, pin the snippets you cannot afford to lose. Pinned items are never auto-purged and survive clears, so they are effectively permanent. See pinned items and favorites.

3. Back up the database

A long history is worth protecting. Maccy stores it in ~/Library/Application Support/Maccy; copy that folder somewhere safe, or rely on Time Machine. Full method: how to back up your Maccy clipboard history.

4. Consider syncing across Macs

If “forever” also means “everywhere,” enable iCloud sync so pinned items follow you between your Macs. Note that full history is local per device; see iCloud sync vs local storage.

The trade-offs of an endless history

• Privacy: a permanent record of everything you copy is sensitive. Keep ignoring password managers, and add banking and 2FA apps to Settings → Ignore.
• Disk: a very large history with many images uses more space. Text-only histories stay tiny; image-heavy ones grow.
• Search: Maccy stays fast even with large histories, so search remains practical.

For most people, a generous limit plus pinned essentials is the sweet spot — effectively “forever” for what you actually need, without an unbounded archive.

The short answer

Set Maccy’s history size to 999,999, disable Clear on Quit, and enable iCloud sync if you want it to survive a Mac replacement. That is the complete setup for permanent clipboard history.

Step 1: Set history size to the maximum

1. Open Maccy Preferences → History
2. Set Size to 999999
3. Close Preferences

At this limit, Maccy would need to store almost a million items before it starts removing old ones. In practice, most users copy a few hundred to a few thousand items per day, so you would need years of continuous use to approach this limit.

Step 2: Disable “Clear on Quit”

1. Open Maccy Preferences → History
2. Ensure Clear History on Quit is unchecked

This is the most common reason history disappears. When enabled, everything is erased every time Maccy quits or the Mac restarts.

Step 3: Enable Launch at Login

1. Open Maccy Preferences → General
2. Enable Launch at Login

This ensures Maccy is always running and capturing new items. If it is not running, nothing gets recorded.

Step 4: Pin items that must never disappear

Pinned items are exempt from the history size limit and never deleted automatically. For truly critical snippets — addresses, account numbers, standard code patterns — pin them:

1. Open Maccy → highlight the item → press ⌘P

See the pinned items guide for full details.

Step 5: iCloud sync for cross-Mac and backup

For history that survives a Mac replacement or clean macOS reinstall:

1. Open Maccy Preferences → General
2. Enable Sync clipboard history via iCloud

Your history is now stored in iCloud Drive and will sync to any Mac you sign in to with the same Apple ID. A new Mac will have your complete history within minutes of installing Maccy and enabling sync.

Storage: how big does the database get?

With 999,999 text items, the Maccy database typically stays under 1 GB. If you copy many images, it can grow larger. At 10,000 primarily text items, expect roughly 20–50 MB. This is negligible on modern Macs with 500 GB+ drives.