🔐 SaneClip

The Only Clipboard Manager That Takes Privacy Seriously

Privacy-first clipboard history · On-device by default · No personal-content upload · Pro adds Touch ID + local history encryption

⭐ Star this repo if you find it useful! · ⬇️ Download Free · 💰 Upgrade to Pro for $14.99 once

What's New • Features • Security • Automation •

🚨 The Problem

Most clipboard managers are security nightmares:

• ❌ Store your passwords, API keys, and credit cards in plaintext
• ❌ Send your clipboard data to the cloud
• ❌ Track everything you copy with analytics
• ❌ Let any app access your clipboard history without permission

You deserve better.

✅ The Solution

SaneClip is the first clipboard manager built with security as the foundation:

On-device by default. Clipboard contents never go to SaneApps servers. Optional iCloud sync uses your own iCloud account, and encrypted sync payloads stay unreadable to SaneApps when History Encryption is enabled. A few simple non-content app counts help us improve the app.

🆕 Current macOS Direct Download: v2.3.7

Current direct-download release (June 2026)

• ✅ Keeps synced Mac clipboard text appearing on iPhone and iPad automatically while the companion app is foregrounded
• ✅ Avoids showing the local pasteboard save banner for iCloud-synced clips
• ✅ Cleans up settings and history-window internals without changing the customer workflow

The prior 2.2.13 mobile follow-up restored the color-coded source indicators on iPhone and iPad and improved recovery for older Mac updater installs.

🧾 Free vs Pro (Current)

Free includes

• Clipboard history (last 50 items)
• Standard paste with original formatting
• Search and source-aware filtering
• Pin and unpin important clips
• Capture Screenshot into history
• Excluded apps and auto-delete controls
• Optional "open at mouse cursor" launch mode
• Free iPhone/iPad companion app with optional private iCloud sync
• On-device privacy defaults

Pro adds on Mac

• Unlimited history
• Touch ID history lock
• History encryption (AES-256-GCM)
• OCR Capture for text grabs and searchable screenshot sidecars
• Smart paste + plain text paste
• Text transforms
• Paste stack (FIFO/LIFO)
• Snippets with placeholders
• Titles, tags, collections, and item notes
• Clipboard rules
• Export and import

⚡️ Features

Keyboard-First Design

• ⌘⇧⌃Y — Open clipboard history
• ⌘⌃1-9 — Paste items 1-9 instantly
• ⌘⇧⌥V — Paste as plain text
• ⌘⌃V — Paste from stack (oldest or newest first — configurable in Settings)
• ↑↓ or j/k — Navigate through history

Smart Snippets

Create reusable text templates with dynamic placeholders:

Hello {{name}},

Thank you for your {{reason}}.
Today's date is {{date}}.

Best regards,
{{clipboard}}

Built-in placeholders:

• {{name}} — Prompts for input when pasting
• {{date}} — Auto-fills current date
• {{time}} — Auto-fills current time
• {{clipboard}} — Current clipboard content

Text Transforms

Right-click any text item and choose "Paste As..." to transform before pasting:

Clipboard Rules

Automatic processing applied to every copy:

• Strip URL Tracking — Removes utm_*, fbclid, gclid, etc.
• Auto-Trim Whitespace — Remove leading/trailing whitespace
• Lowercase URLs — Convert URLs to lowercase
• Normalize Line Endings — Convert to consistent line breaks
• Remove Duplicate Spaces — Collapse multiple spaces

Organization

• 📌 Pin Favorites — Keep frequently-used text always accessible
• 🔍 Instant Search — Filter by content, source app, or date
• 🎨 Source-Aware Colors — Every clip is color-coded by source app (Messages green, Safari blue, Mail red, and more)
• 📱 App Source Attribution — See which app each clip came from
• 🔄 Duplicate Detection — Identical clips automatically consolidate
• 📊 Paste Count Badges — Track how many times you've used each item
• ⏱️ Auto-Expire — Delete old items after 1h, 24h, 7d, or 30d
• 🖼️ Image Capture — Copies images too, not just text

macOS Widgets

Add SaneClip widgets to your desktop or Notification Center:

Data Management

• 📤 Export History — Export to JSON with timestamps and metadata
• 📥 Import History — Import previously exported history
• ⚙️ Settings Sync — Backup or transfer settings to another Mac
• 📊 Storage Stats — View detailed statistics about your clipboard

🤖 Automation

URL Scheme

Control SaneClip programmatically via saneclip:// URLs:

Siri Shortcuts

SaneClip integrates with Shortcuts.app via App Intents:

• Get Clipboard History — Returns recent text items
• Paste Clipboard Item — Pastes item at specified index
• Search Clipboard — Search history and return matches
• Copy to SaneClip — Copy text to clipboard
• Clear Clipboard History — Clear all non-pinned items
• Paste Snippet — Paste a saved snippet by name
• List Snippets — Returns all snippet names

Automation Status

SaneClip currently exposes URL schemes, App Intents, and Shortcuts actions. Webhook delivery code is not exposed in the current settings UI, so it is not advertised as an end-user automation path for this release.

🔒 Security

SaneClip is privacy-first:

• ✅ On-Device by Default — Your clipboard history stays on your Mac unless you enable sync or explicitly export/share it
• ✅ Optional iCloud Sync — Syncs through your own iCloud account, not a SaneApps server
• ✅ No Clipboard-Content Upload to SaneApps — Clipboard contents are not sent to SaneApps servers
• ✅ 100% Transparent Code — Verify yourself at github.com/sane-apps/SaneClip
• ✅ PolyForm Shield License — Community-auditable, source-available

Sensitive Data Detection:

• Credit cards (Luhn algorithm validation)
• Social Security Numbers
• API keys (OpenAI, AWS, GitHub, Slack, Stripe, Google, etc.)
• Passwords and private keys (SSH, PGP/GPG)
• Email addresses

Auto-Purge Rules: Configure automatic deletion of sensitive items after 1 minute, 5 minutes, or 1 hour.

See PRIVACY.md and SECURITY.md for full details.

📦 Installation

SaneClip Basic is $0. Clipboard history, search, pinning, screenshots, private defaults, and the free iPhone/iPad companion app are included.

Mac Pro is a one-time unlock. The iPhone/iPad companion remains a separate free App Store download that uses your iCloud account for sync.

Want more? Upgrade to Pro ($14.99 once) for OCR capture, unlimited history, Touch ID lock, encryption-at-rest, smarter paste, snippets, and advanced rules.

Install

# Homebrew (optional)
brew install --cask sane-apps/tap/saneclip

# Already use Homebrew and want it to manage an existing install:
brew install --cask --adopt sane-apps/tap/saneclip

Or download directly · or build from source

The direct download is the canonical Mac release channel and updates itself automatically via Sparkle. brew upgrade works too if you choose the Homebrew cask.

Requirements

macOS App:

• macOS 14.0 (Sonoma) or later
• Apple Silicon Mac (M1+)

iOS Companion App:

• iOS 18.0 or later
• iPhone or iPad

🛠️ Development

Cloning without starring? For real? ⭐ Star it first. Help others discover quality software.

# Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/sane-apps/SaneClip.git
cd SaneClip

# Build + test (preferred)
./scripts/SaneMaster.rb verify

# Launch
./scripts/SaneMaster.rb launch

SaneMaster runs XcodeGen when needed; only run xcodegen generate manually if you add files and want to refresh immediately.

See DEVELOPMENT.md for detailed setup and CONTRIBUTING.md for coding standards.

🤝 Contributing

Before opening a PR:

1. ⭐ Star the repo (if you haven't already)
2. Read CONTRIBUTING.md
3. Open an issue first to discuss major changes

Building from source? Consider buying the app to support continued development.

📚 Documentation

💬 Support

• 🐛 Report a Bug
• 💡 Request a Feature
• ❤️ Sponsor on GitHub

Crypto Donations

🌟 Why Choose SaneClip?

💡 Found a Bug? Want a Feature?

⭐ Star the repo first — Then open an issue. Stars help us prioritize which projects get the most attention.

• 🐛 Report a Bug
• 💡 Request a Feature

Cloning without starring? For real bro? Gimme that star!

📦 Distribution Versions

SaneClip is available in two versions with different capabilities:

Why the difference? The Mac App Store version runs in Apple's sandbox, which blocks simulated keyboard events (used for auto-paste). Instead, the App Store version copies items to your clipboard and shows a notification — just press Cmd+V to paste. All other features work identically.

Direct download: Free Basic at saneclip.com/download · Upgrade to Pro for $14.99 once — includes Sparkle auto-updates.

📱 iOS Companion App (Free)

Your Mac clipboard history, on your iPhone and iPad. The iOS app is a free companion for viewing, searching, copying, pinning, sharing into SaneClip, and saving the current iPhone clipboard. The full automation and paste power tools live on Mac.

• History Tab — Browse recent clips with source-aware colors, tap-to-copy, and haptic feedback
• Pinned Tab — Quick access to your favorites
• Detail View — Full content preview with selectable text, tappable URLs, and image rendering
• Siri Shortcuts — "Get recent clips", "Search clips", "Copy last clip" via Shortcuts app
• Share Extension — Save text and URLs to SaneClip from any app's share sheet
• iOS Widgets — Recent and Pinned clips for Home Screen and Lock Screen
• iCloud Sync — Keep Mac and iPhone/iPad history in sync through your own iCloud account while the companion app is active

🏆 Compare SaneClip

Looking at alternatives? Here's how SaneClip stacks up:

Bottom line: SaneClip combines strong privacy controls, automation, OCR capture, and a free companion app in a way the usual clipboard managers still do not.

📝 License

PolyForm Shield 1.0.0 — free for any use except building a competing product. See LICENSE for details.

Third-Party Notices

Third-party open-source attributions are documented in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.

Become a Contributor (Even if You Don't Code)

Are you tired of waiting on the dev to get around to fixing your problem?
Do you have a great idea that could help everyone in the community, but think you can't do anything about it because you're not a coder?

Good news: you actually can.

Copy and paste this into Claude or Codex, then describe your bug or idea:

I want to contribute to this repo, but I'm not a coder.

Repository:
https://github.com/sane-apps/SaneClip

Bug or idea:
[Describe your bug or idea here in plain English]

Please do this for me:
1) Understand and reproduce the issue (or understand the feature request).
2) Make the smallest safe fix.
3) Open a pull request to https://github.com/sane-apps/SaneClip
4) Give me the pull request link.
5) Open a GitHub issue in https://github.com/sane-apps/SaneClip/issues/new?template=bug_report.md that includes:
   - the pull request link
   - a short summary of what changed and why
6) Also give me the exact issue link.

Important:
- Keep it focused on this one issue/idea.
- Do not make unrelated changes.

If needed, you can also just email the pull request link to [email protected].

I review and test every pull request before merge.

If your PR is merged, I will publicly give you credit, and you'll have the satisfaction of knowing you helped ship a fix for everyone.