MPaste

A modern clipboard manager for Windows and Linux, inspired by Paste for macOS.

MPaste has no affiliation with Paste for Mac. I just like its UX design and decided to build one in Qt.

Light mode:

Dark mode:

Features

• Clipboard history — automatically captures text, links, images, rich text, files, colors, and Office content
• Card-based UI — each clipboard item rendered as a visual card with icon, thumbnail, and metadata
• Boards — "Clipboard" for live history, "Starred" for favorites; pin or star items independently
• Search & filter — type to search, filter by content type
• Quick paste — Alt+[1-9, 0] to paste by position; Ctrl+Enter or Alt+Shift+[1-9, 0] to paste as plain text
• Space preview — press Space to open a large, zoomable preview of the selected item
• Dark / Light / System theme — full theme support with smooth switching
• Auto paste — optionally paste immediately on item selection
• Persistent history — clipboard items saved to disk in .mpaste v4 format with embedded thumbnails
• Link preview — fetches OpenGraph metadata and favicons for URL items
• Multi-select — Ctrl/Shift click to select multiple items for bulk favorite or delete
• Configurable retention — auto-cleanup history by days, weeks, or months
• Global hotkey — assign a system shortcut to toggle the MPaste window

Keyboard Shortcuts

Hold Alt to show shortcut hints on cards.

Platform Notes

Windows

• Global hotkey uses Alt-based toggle with Office/WPS ribbon-keytip avoidance
• Paste injection via simulated keypress (Ctrl+V, Shift+Insert, etc.)

Linux

• X11 support with xdotool integration
• Wayland: window icons cannot be fetched (see PlatformRelated.h)
• On GNOME, install Focus My Window for proper focus after hotkey activation
• Deepin V20: download .deb from the release page

Configuration

Config file: ~/.config/MPaste/MPaste.conf

Build from Source

Requirements

• C++17 compiler
• CMake 3.7+
• Qt 6 (Widgets, Multimedia, Network, Xml)

Linux

sudo apt install cmake g++ make libkf5windowsystem-dev qttools5-dev libqt5x11extras5-dev qtmultimedia5-dev libgsettings-qt-dev
git clone https://github.com/SeptemberHX/MPaste
cd MPaste
mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
make -j8

Windows

cmake -B build -DMPASTE_QT_ROOT=C:/Qt/6.8.0/mingw_64
cmake --build build

Optional CMake flags:

Rendering Backend

Control the OpenGL backend via MPASTE_OPENGL_BACKEND environment variable:

Credits

• KDSingleApplication
• Sound effects from Zapsplat
• Icons by Pixel Perfect from Flaticon

License

GPLv3