Duplia vs Maccy vs Paste: choosing a Mac clipboard manager in 2026
Three apps dominate this category, and they answer three different questions. Do you want something free and minimal, something that syncs to your iPhone, or something that looks and feels like it shipped with macOS? Here is the honest version — including what Duplia does not do.
The short answer
- Maccy — free, open source, keyboard-driven. The right answer if you copy text all day and want zero ceremony.
- Paste — $29.99/year. The right answer if you need your clipboard on Mac, iPhone and iPad, or want OCR search inside copied images.
- Duplia — $14.99 once. The right answer if you want it to feel like part of macOS: the panel springs out of the notch, sorts clips by type, and parks files on a shelf. Nothing leaves your Mac.
Side by side
| Duplia | Maccy | Paste | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $14.99 once | Free (MIT), $9.99 support build on the App Store | $29.99 per year |
| Model | One-time purchase, 3 Macs, no account | Open source | Subscription, also in Setapp |
| Where it lives | In the notch — or at your cursor | Menu bar | Full-width bar |
| Storage | Local SQLite, on your Mac | Local | Local + iCloud |
| iPhone / iPad sync | No | No | Yes, via iCloud |
| Automatic categories | Text, links, images, colours, code | Text-focused | Yes |
| File shelf | Yes — drag files to the notch | No | No |
| OCR / image search | No | No | Yes |
| Password protection | Concealed flags respected + app exclusion list | Concealed flags respected | Concealed flags respected |
| Requirements | macOS 14+, Apple Silicon | macOS 13+ | macOS 13+ |
Prices and features as of July 2026. Maccy and Paste are trademarks of their respective developers; we compare them here because they are the two apps people ask about most.
Where each one wins
Maccy, if free and minimal is the point
Maccy does one thing: it remembers what you copied and gets it back with the keyboard. It is open source under the MIT licence, installs from Homebrew in seconds, and asks nothing of you. If your clipboard is 95 % text and you never wanted a product, just a function, this is the honest recommendation — and it costs nothing.
Paste, if you live across devices
Paste is the polished veteran of the category. Its real advantage is iCloud sync: copy on the Mac, paste on the iPhone. It also searches text inside copied screenshots, which is genuinely useful if you copy receipts and invoices. That comes at $29.99 a year, which over three years is roughly six times the price of Duplia — worth it if you use the sync, hard to justify if you don't.
Duplia, if it should feel like macOS
Duplia was built for the moment where a clipboard manager stops feeling like an add-on. Press ⌥ V and the panel grows out of the notch with a spring, in the same dark, rounded visual language Apple uses for the Dynamic Island — no menu bar icon, no window chrome, nothing permanently on screen. Clips sort themselves by type, with the source app's icon and a timestamp. Files dragged to the notch park on a shelf until you need them.
It is a one-time purchase of $14.99 for up to three Macs, with a 7-day trial and no account. Everything stays in a plain SQLite database inside your Library folder; the network is used only for the licence check and updates.
What Duplia does not do
Being straight about this is more useful than a feature list: there is no iPhone or iPad sync and no OCR search inside images. If either is essential to you, Paste is the better tool and we would rather you knew that now. Duplia is deliberately a Mac app that keeps your clipboard on your Mac.
Does it work without a notch?
Yes, on any Apple Silicon Mac with macOS 14 or later. On displays without a notch the top edge stays completely clean — no icon, no pill — and the panel materialises from the top edge on the shortcut, or right at your mouse cursor if you prefer. On a MacBook with a notch it simply has a nicer home.
See the difference yourself
7-day trial · $14.99 once · macOS 14+ · Apple Silicon
Download Duplia for Mac