Best Paste alternatives
for Mac in 2026
Since Paste was acquired by Bending Spoons / WeTransfer in 2024, many users have been looking for a clipboard manager that respects the original promise: keep what you copy, find it fast, no surprise pricing changes. Here are the 8 best alternatives — ranked, tested, honest.
How we ranked these
We weighed five things: feature parity with Paste, pricing fairness (one-time over subscription where possible), cross-device sync, active maintenance, and indie ownership. We use most of these apps regularly. MacPaste is ours — we tell you when one of the others is actually better for your use case.
The most direct spiritual successor to original Paste. Unlimited history, 7 color tags, hover preview, Mac ↔ iPhone iCloud sync, pinned boards. Lifetime pricing, indie owner. Built specifically after the WeTransfer acquisition to fill the gap.
The leading open-source clipboard manager. Text only, no images, no sync, no labels — but rock-solid, audited code, and zero cost. Perfect for developers who only need URLs and snippets.
Not a standalone clipboard — it's a clipboard module inside the Raycast launcher. Excellent if you already use Raycast for everything. Free tier caps history at 3 months; Pro removes the cap but costs $120/year.
The mature Tapbots option. Excellent filters and regex transformations make it powerful for power users. No iCloud sync, no iPhone app — and no real plans for either since 2018. Solid but Mac-only, slightly aging UI.
Veteran Mac launcher with paid clipboard add-on inside Powerpack. Great if you already pay for Powerpack for workflows and snippets. No iCloud sync, no iPhone — but very mature and extensible.
Plain-text-only clipboard built for developers. Minimal, ultra-lightweight (~2 MB), been around forever. Doesn't handle images or rich content. Perfect if you only copy code and URLs.
The gentle free option from the Mac App Store. Tiny text history (max 25 in free, 999 in v2). Zero learning curve, but very limited — no images, no tags, no sync, sparse updates.
Still works fine — the app didn't break. But subscription-only since the Bending Spoons acquisition, gradually being absorbed into the WeTransfer / Evernote product line. Listed here for completeness; we recommend looking elsewhere for the same reason most users started looking.
Frequently asked questions
What happened to Paste app?
Paste was acquired by Bending Spoons (WeTransfer's parent company) in June 2024. The app continues to function but shifted to subscription-only pricing and is being integrated into the broader Bending Spoons product portfolio. Many long-time users started looking for indie alternatives at that point.
Is there a free Paste alternative?
Yes — MacPaste is free with unlimited local history (you only pay for iPhone sync). Maccy and Flycut are both fully free open-source options for text-only use. CopyClip is free with a small history cap.
Which alternative has iCloud sync with iPhone?
Only MacPaste in this list. The other apps are Mac-only. Raycast offers Mac ↔ Mac sync (Pro tier) but no iPhone app.
Best one-time payment option?
Pastebot at $19.99 if you don't need sync. MacPaste at $49 lifetime if you want everything (sync + iPhone app + color tags + pinned boards). Both are honest one-time deals — no subscription trap.
Try MacPaste free.
Unlimited local history. Pay $49 once if you want iPhone sync — and that's it.
Download MacPaste