One of the biggest complaints I’ve had with macOS over the years has been its lack of a native clipboard manager. Whenever you copy anything, the single-item clipboard in macOS overwrites the stuff you had copied earlier. The only option you have is to rely on third-party clipboard managers like Paste or Maccy. Fortunately, macOS Tahoe solves this problem by integrating a clipboard manager into Spotlight Search.
Apple’s Clipboard Problem Explained
While the default clipboard on macOS is reliable for the most part, it has historically lacked the ability to store multiple items. This means that once you copy a new block of text, an image, or a PDF document, the previous item is overwritten and lost. It’s still beyond my imagination why an essential productivity feature like a clipboard manager was left out by Apple in a polished operating system such as macOS.
This problem is particularly glaring when compared to Windows, which introduced a Clipboard History feature in Windows 10. MacOS users, envious of this simple feature, often turn to third-party clipboard managers such as Paste or Maccy. While such apps do the trick, they come with their own set of quirks. Some need a subscription, don’t offer seamless integration, or aren’t reliable from a privacy standpoint.
How macOS Tahoe Solves the Clipboard Problem?
macOS Tahoe 26 introduces a native Clipboard History feature that seamlessly integrates with Spotlight. Now, you can access a history of copied text, images, links, and more directly through Spotlight’s search interface. All you need to do is invoke Spotlight and click on the Clipboard icon (or press Command + 4). This will open a visual preview of recent clipboard entries, complete with context about the source app.
From this interface, you can simply select a previously copied item with the arrow keys and hit return to paste it inside any app or click the clipboard button to copy and paste an item manually. However, if you want to remove an item from the clipboard history, you just need to right-click on it and hit Delete Item.
