Maccy and Apple Shortcuts: Automating Your Mac Clipboard

Guides By Updated June 2026 · 7 min read

Maccy does not add Shortcuts actions, but it automatically captures everything Shortcuts writes to the clipboard. Here is how to build real automation workflows that use Maccy as a persistent clipboard store alongside Apple Shortcuts, AppleScript, and Keyboard Maestro.

How it works. Maccy does not add Shortcuts actions, but it captures everything written to the macOS clipboard — including items written by Shortcuts. So any automation that ends with “Copy to Clipboard” or “Set Clipboard” becomes a Maccy history item automatically. You can then search, pin, and paste it via Maccy like anything else you copied manually.

How Maccy and Shortcuts interact

Try Maccy freeFree • Open source • macOS 14+ • ~8 MB
⌘⇧C clipboard history

Apple Shortcuts on macOS has a Set Clipboard action that writes any value directly to the clipboard. Maccy monitors the clipboard at the system level, so the moment a Shortcut writes something, Maccy captures it. There is nothing to configure — it works automatically from the first launch.

This means you can build Shortcuts that generate useful text (formatted dates, boilerplate responses, API-prepared strings) and pipe them into Maccy's history for fast retrieval later.

Practical Shortcuts that work with Maccy

1. Clean and copy selected text

Trigger: run from the Services menu or a keyboard shortcut when text is selected.

  1. Action: Get Selected Text (from the frontmost app)
  2. Action: Replace Text (remove double spaces, normalise punctuation)
  3. Action: Set Clipboard to the result

The cleaned text lands in Maccy's history. You can see it was processed (different from the original copy) and paste the clean version.

2. Format and stamp a date

One of the most useful clipboard automations is generating a formatted date string:

  1. Action: Date (current date)
  2. Action: Format Date → "YYYY-MM-DD" or "D MMMM YYYY"
  3. Action: Set Clipboard

Assign this Shortcut a global keyboard shortcut (e.g. ⌘⌥D). Whenever you need today's date, one press writes it to the clipboard and Maccy's history. The next time you need it again during the same day, it is already in Maccy — no second press needed.

3. Convert URL to Markdown link

For developers and writers who work in Markdown:

  1. Action: Get Clipboard (assumes a URL is on the clipboard)
  2. Action: Get Contents of URL → extract title from HTML
  3. Action: Combine Text → [{title}]({url})
  4. Action: Set Clipboard

The Markdown link lands in Maccy. Because Maccy keeps history, you can build several of these in sequence, then paste them all via Maccy's history without re-running the Shortcut.

4. Multi-item clipboard build (developer workflow)

Maccy's history effectively gives you a multi-clipboard. Pair this with Shortcuts:

  1. Run a Shortcut that writes Item A to clipboard → Maccy captures it
  2. Run another Shortcut that writes Item B to clipboard → Maccy captures it
  3. Open Maccy (⌘⇧C) and you have both A and B in your searchable history

This is especially useful for code review, where you might build a set of standard comments via Shortcuts and then paste the right one per context.

Using AppleScript with Maccy

Maccy does not expose an AppleScript API, but you can write to the macOS clipboard via osascript and Maccy will capture it:

osascript -e 'set the clipboard to "Hello, this text is now in Maccy"'

For multiline text:

osascript -e 'set the clipboard to "Line 1" & return & "Line 2"'

You can trigger these from Terminal, from Shortcuts via a Run Shell Script action, or from any automation tool (Hammerspoon, Keyboard Maestro, Bunch, etc.).

Using Keyboard Maestro with Maccy

Keyboard Maestro has native clipboard actions and deep Maccy compatibility:

  • Set Clipboard to Text → Maccy captures it automatically
  • Filter Clipboard (trim, strip HTML) → Maccy sees the filtered result
  • Use Typed String Trigger to expand abbreviations and write them to clipboard → Maccy stores each expansion

Maccy's ignore list and automation

By default, Maccy's ignore list blocks certain apps from having their clipboard activity recorded. If you have an automation tool on the ignore list, its clipboard writes will not appear in Maccy. Check Maccy Preferences → Ignore and ensure your automation apps are not excluded.

This is configurable: you can add or remove bundle IDs from the ignore list. See Maccy ignored apps configuration guide for the full reference.

Automation questions

Can Shortcuts read from Maccy's history?

Not directly — Maccy does not expose a Shortcuts data source. A Shortcut can read the current clipboard (Get Clipboard action), which is the most recent item. To access older items, use Maccy's own search UI.

Can I pin a Maccy item from a Shortcut or script?

Not via the API. Pinning is done from Maccy's UI: open the history, select an item, and press Cmd+P. There is no scriptable pinning interface.

Does Maccy capture clipboard writes from background processes?

Yes. Maccy monitors the clipboard at the system level and captures any write, regardless of whether it came from a user action, a Shortcut, an AppleScript, or any other process. The exception is apps on the ignore list.

Related articles