A private clipboard manager for macOS

Status: Pesto is available from the Releases page and from copypesto.net/download, with its SHA-256. Requires macOS 15 or later. Some features use Apple Intelligence and say so where they do. Signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarized by Apple.

Official downloads: Pesto is published only at copypesto.net. Any other site that offers Pesto is not ours.

Why Pesto

I used Paste and had paid for it. Then it required a recurring subscription, and what I had bought no longer covered it. I did not want to rent access to my own clipboard history, so I built the one I wanted: native to the Mac, free for everyone, open source, and private by design.

What it does

Press ⌘⇧V and your history slides up as a shelf of clips. Arrow to a clip and press Return, or press ⌘1 to ⌘9. It lands in the app you were using, a fraction of a second later; a copy is on the shelf before you reach for it.

• Paste All (⌘P) joins the selected text clips with a blank line and pastes them at once.
• Paste One by One (⇧⌘P) pastes the first clip, then the next on each plain ⌘V.
• Undo (⌘Z) takes back a delete or an edit, and ⇧⌘Z does it again.
• Secrets such as card numbers and keys are masked on the shelf until you choose Show.
• Decode JWT reads a masked token's header, payload and expiry on your Mac after Touch ID, without showing the signature.

Type to find it

Search matches words, meaning (in English) and the text inside pictures, all on your Mac. Filter by type, date or app. Or ask: type “links from today”, press Ask, and Pesto turns your words into filters. It uses Apple Intelligence when your Mac has it, and simple rules when it does not.

More in Using Pesto.

A clipboard that remembers, and tells no one

• Your history is encrypted on your Mac with AES-256-GCM, under a key kept in your login Keychain. No account, no analytics, and no server that receives your clips. Backup is off until you turn it on, and it is one encrypted file only you can open, even in iCloud Drive.
• Secrets (card numbers, keys, tokens, passwords) are masked on the shelf and never indexed. Copies that an app marks as concealed, such as those from password managers, are ignored.
• No clip is sent to an AI service. On-device AI runs with Apple Intelligence on your Mac, and only there.
• Pesto makes only a few requests: update checks (switchable in Settings) and link previews (off until you turn them on) and links you open.
• Optional Touch ID lock, and Clear Everything in Settings, under Data.

The full list of what is stored and sent, including what encryption does not protect, is in Privacy and security.

Clips that know what they are, and more

• Smart clips. A date offers Add to Calendar, a parcel number offers Track, an address opens in Maps, a phone number calls.
• Snippets that ask. A snippet can ask for a name, a choice or an optional paragraph when you paste it, in a small panel over the app you are in, and starts with what you typed last time. When you copy messages that differ only in a few words, Pesto offers one snippet with a fill-in for what changes. All of it runs on your Mac.
• One glyph, drawn big. A clip that is a single emoji or symbol fills its card, centered.
• GIFs move. A GIF copied from Safari, Finder or a chat plays on its card; one copied from Chrome, Arc or Edge plays too, because Pesto fetches the GIF the browser pointed to (with Link Previews on; the browser only hands over the first frame).
• Files stay together. Copy five files in Finder and you get one clip that pastes all five back, with icons, names and a warning if one has moved.
• Sensitive content, your way. Blur or hide links to adult sites, and pictures your Mac's on-device model flags (macOS 27, best effort, so it can miss things). Mark any clip as sensitive, and find them all again with one filter. Return and a double click paste a hidden clip without showing it; showing it is always your choice.
• Only this Mac, unless you say otherwise. Copies from your iPhone or another Mac reach Pesto through Universal Clipboard. They are ignored by default; turn them on in Privacy and find them with the Other Devices filter.
• On-device AI (needs Apple Intelligence on macOS 26 or later; Describe Image needs macOS 27): summarize, translate (into English, or English into Spanish), extract, describe a picture. Grayed out with the reason when your Mac cannot.
• Encrypted backup. One encrypted file for this Mac in iCloud Drive or a folder you choose, protected by a passphrase or a recovery key you can show again later. The Back up this Mac switch is off until you turn it on, and per Mac. Restoring on another Mac is a manual step that counts what it would add before you confirm it. Pesto has no server that receives the file.
• Sync between your Macs. Sync with my other Macs is off until you turn it on, and per Mac. Each Mac writes its own encrypted files into a folder in iCloud Drive and merges the others', with a key separate from the one that protects your history, no list of Macs to manage, Reset Sync if one is lost, and secrets staying on the Mac that copied them unless you choose. Deleting a clip on one Mac deletes it on all, so it is not a backup. Pesto has no server that receives the files.
• Collections, paste as plain text, and drag a clip into any app or onto the Desktop. A click picks a clip and a double click pastes it.

The shelf in each theme: Basil, Parmesan, Pine nut and Mortar.

Install

• Homebrew (optional). Run brew install michaelro/copypesto/pesto to install the notarized disk image from the Releases page. If Homebrew prompts to trust the tap, run brew trust michaelro/copypesto. Homebrew checks its SHA-256 and can be a version behind. Pesto updates itself, so brew upgrade leaves it alone unless you add --greedy. Remove it with brew uninstall --cask pesto.
• Download. Get Pesto from the Releases page or from copypesto.net/download, check the SHA-256 shown there, open the disk image and drag Pesto to Applications.
• Source. Build it yourself; see For developers below. The pesto command-line tool is in the source tree and is not part of the download yet (make build-cli).

Then press ⌘⇧V. Pesto asks for Accessibility access once, so it can paste into other apps for you and notice a double ⌘C (the optional append shortcut). Everything else works without it.

Getting started walks through it.

Read more

Using Pesto	The shelf, search, collections, pasting, shortcuts
Settings	Every setting, pane by pane
Privacy and security	What is stored, what is encrypted, what is never captured
Automation	URL scheme, AppleScript, command line, Shortcuts
Every feature, in detail	The full reference list
Troubleshooting and FAQ	When something does not work

For developers

Pesto is written in Swift 6 with SwiftUI and AppKit. It needs macOS 15 or later. Xcode 27 builds everything; Xcode 26 builds it without Describe Image and picture screening.

git clone https://github.com/MichaelRo/copypesto.git && cd copypesto
export PATH="$(scripts/install-tools.sh):$PATH"   # the pinned xcodegen, swiftformat and swiftlint (scripts/tool-versions.env)
git config core.hooksPath .githooks
make setup-signing   # once: a local signing certificate, so macOS keeps Pesto's permissions between builds
make run             # build and open Pesto.app
make test-core       # the fast tests, no Xcode project needed

Architecture, how to build and test it, the security invariants and the project's working agreements are in docs/development.md and CONTRIBUTING.md. Every important decision has an ADR. Security reports: SECURITY.md. Help: SUPPORT.md.

Pesto is written with AI coding tools (Claude and Gemini) under human design, architecture records (decisions/) and a verification suite that checks the security and privacy rules on every change.

Support

Pesto is free, and every feature is free on every install. If you want to support its development, there is a GitHub Sponsors button on this repository. Donations unlock nothing in the app (ADR 0001).

The early history was condensed before the repository went public; CHANGELOG.md lists what each release changed.

License and name

The code is MIT. Third-party notices: THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md. The MIT license covers the code; it does not cover the Pesto name, the logo and app icon (the P mark and the jar) or the artwork. You are welcome to use them to say that you use, review or write about Pesto; see TRADEMARKS.md if you plan to fork.