ClipTools is a free clipboard manager and text selection utility for Mac from MacMost. With it you can access your clipboard history, save clips, use programmable Smart Clips, paste the date or time, insert example text, perform calculations and paste the result or replace the selection, convert numbers to words, sorts lines and so much more. Check out https://macmost.com/cliptools for a full list of features and an App Store link.
Comments: 73 Responses to “A New Free Mac Utility App: ClipTools”
Eric
2 years ago
This looks really useful.
Could the number to word conversion have an option to use British wording? For example, in Britain for 2345678 we would say "two million, three hundred and forty-five thousand, six hundred and seventy-eight" (i.e. add the word "and" as necessary?
Luc Prévost
2 years ago
Just wanted to say thanks!
I have been dreaming about such an app for many years.
You took it to an incredible level for a first version.
Bravo.
Eric: Possibly. I'm going to wait to see how people use it and what requests like this come in.
John Michaels
2 years ago
This will be handy. Thanks, Gary.
Peter Weiler
2 years ago
I downloaded ClipTools and then couldn't find it in the Applications folder.
Rookie mistake. As you stated, it was right up in the Menu Bar.
Thanks, Gary, for this sweet App.
Peter Weiler
2 years ago
What I meant to say is I thought I couldn't open it from the Applications folder. It was already open of course.
Bota Bob
2 years ago
I'm going to give it a try Gary (downloaded and installed). Is there a way to delete an individual clip from the top tier without clearing the entire clipboard? I often us copy, paste with userid's and passwords. It would be nice to be able to delete a single clip with out clearing the entire clipboard. My apology if I missed this detail on the instruction page located on the MacMost web page.
Eric
2 years ago
Both Bob: have you tried the shift-option keys when viewing the clip tools content? That provides a Remove choice.
Bota: Yes. See the documentation page and look at the Modifiers.
Ron B.
2 years ago
How did I ever manage to be productive without this app? Really well thought out, and infinitely useful. Thanks, Gary!
Kay Fisher
2 years ago
Wow. Best clipboard manager ever.
Now my first request. I would like a metric conversion to work something like this:
a wing span of 72.5 feet
After I type 72.5 feet I would like to click on "Cliptools" and have it add to my sentence like this:
a wing span of 72.5 feet (22 meters)
I can't tell you how many times I have had to convert lengths weight and temperture into metric...
Lawrence: There's no way to edit a saved clip. You'd need to paste it into something (TextEdit) and then make changes, then copy it again and save it.
M Connors
2 years ago
I've toyed with it a little and think this will be a handy tool. Thanks for you work and providing it for free. The Smart Clip could be really useful. The only thing that has jumped out to me is that the Smart Clip window could be *much* larger. If your Smart Clip is more than a few sentences they will run off the window and make it harder to keep track of the creation process. A work around for now is simply to create the Smart Clip text in an external editor and copy/paste it into the window.
M Connors: I'm using some system windows for that now. In the future I would love to build my own windows to give more space. But until then you can always compose the text in another app like TextEdit and then paste as you mentioned.
Casey
2 years ago
This is a great app. Do you have any plans for creating a similar app for the ipad? Thank you.
Marcia: They don't have names. It is just the first part of the Smart Clip.
Eduardo
2 years ago
Wow! I've been making some AppleScripts from time to time to get some part of the functionality of this tool. Now all of this and much more is in one place. Very good app.
marcia
2 years ago
Thank you Gary for this app. I have created 2 Smart Clips. These are letters I send out often for a doctor I work for. At the end of the letter I have clickable links to our social media etc. One smart clip has those links and they are clickable. The other letter I can't get it to paste with clickable links. I hope this makes sense.
Dennis
2 years ago
It's already useful and valuable! Thank you so much!
Narelle
2 years ago
That looks FANTASTIC! but my 2015 iMac Mojove won't drive it. Bumma!
Gary: This is an excellent utility! Very easy to use and there are keyboard shortcuts everywhere!
Also I like the calculations feature a lot.
Well done and thanks.
Umesh Kumar
2 years ago
Incredibly good.
Paul
2 years ago
The app informs me of the need to allow Accessibility - but Clip Tools is not appearing in setting. Either from the link or searching directly. (Mac Studio, MacOs 13.1) Any suggestions?
Paul: If it doesn't appear there automatically, then you can do it manually by going to System Settings, Privacy & Security, Accessibility, click the + button, then look in the Applications folder and add ClipTools to the list.
David
2 years ago
Sorry I get zippo.
On the latest MacBook Air 13.6 inch 2022
Went to App Store > Downloaded > Open - NADA
Not in the menubar or anywhere else
When I tried to delete it: Can't delete app is currently open...
Still nothing.
I have Allow apps downloaded from App store on.
What on earth have I missed?
David: Is perhaps the right side of your Menu Bar already full with other icons? There is only so much room and new items added there would be cut off to the left.
Yvon Langevin
2 years ago
Super app I love it, but I have a lot of shortcut that is not working , could it be that my Mac as a french keyboard.
Paul
2 years ago
Thanks for the help to get it working Gary.
Kent
2 years ago
Great app. Really helpful. MacMost is, by far, the most helpful Mac-related site on the web. Thanks for all you do.
Is there a way to edit a smart clip?
Do you have plans to sync settings, smart clips, etc. between Macs?
Kent: Yes. See the help page and look under Modifiers for Smart Clips. Perhaps in the future I'll add iCloud syncing.
nick
2 years ago
Very functional and well-designed app Gary. It helps that you understand the Mac ecosystem so well and know what features are desirable in an app. If you're looking for suggestions: I'd me more than happy to buy a nice calculator app for the iPad :), since Apple doesn't seem interested in including one in that iOS.
Ken Nellis
2 years ago
Great tool. Thanx! The feature I'm looking for allows for swapping the selected text with what's in the clipboard. You use it to swap two items of text: select the 1st item and copy it, then select the 2nd item and the command replaces the text with what's in the clipboard and replaces the clipboard contents with the 2nd item. Then you can select the 1st item and paste so that the two items have now been swapped.
Ron: Actually, it already does this. I tested it with 1Password using the password tags they add to the clipboard to indicate that it is a password. Then ClipTools ignores it. Not all password managers use these tags and I fear some may use different tags. I'll continue to add exceptions like this as I gain intel on them.
Bart_in_FL
2 years ago
Absolutely fantastic. Huge productivity helper. How do you manage to do everything: daily tutorials, super courses and apps? Thank you, Gary!
Joseph
2 years ago
Hi Gary,
Great utility! Is there any way to have the option to have the history deleted/cleared out upon reboot for privacy and security concerns?
In Windows, if I press the Windows Key + V to paste my copy history, I get a popup showing me the history and what I can paste along with other utilities at the top. Is this a feature that may come to your utility? Thanks!
Joseph: I don't know about adding an auto-delete function. I'll see if others request it. As for the Windows functionality, it sounds like exactly what ClipTools already does.
George
2 years ago
Thanks for this great app! In the next version could you add, if possible, a configurable Selection Action (which can be saved) that can replace something a user defines. Something like the "Remove extra spaces" you provide but with the option to define a certain character sting, say, "*" to remove all asterisks from the text. Or perhaps replace all "-" with "_", for example.
Obelix
2 years ago
I still don't understand why Facebook posts can have common adornments (italics, bold, etc) Was thrilled to see the upside down text pasted nicely into Facebook. You must do some font substitution for this to work. Care to share your technique? I'd like to write an editor in SwiftUI allowing a user to type an entire post, then select text and apply italics, bold, etc. However it would need to perform the substitution similar to your upside down text! What's the technique?
Michael
2 years ago
Thank you Gary,
I found it will copy into a number of apps including WORD and EXCEL on Mac (which I have to use for work). I admit that I missed the Windows 'clipboard' when I migrated to Mac a number of years ago with Mac's clipboard limited to one item but Windows' providing a number of 'clipped' items. Your ClipTools will save me a lot of time when writing and editing documents. Thanks again.
Obelix: It is just a straight character substitution. No font changes. So looping through the characters and replacing most (not all) letters with something that looks close enough. Like a to ɐ. There are lists of the unicode characters if you search for them.
In response, practicality is in the eyes of the beholder. In my genealogy hobby, I am frequently correcting things that are out of order or reversed: birth and death dates, even mothers and fathers. To do the swap I currently need a temporary area: copy A to Temp, copy B to A, copy Temp to B. I've been using Quick Notes for the temporary storage area, but then this has to be cleaned up to keep it under control.
Ken: With ClipTools, you could copy A, then copy B, then paste A over B and then paste the old B from ClipTools to A.
Ken Nellis
2 years ago
Gary: Yes, definitely better than what I have now: 4 select–copy/paste operations with ClipTools instead of 6 that I currently have. My ideal procedure would involve only 3, but very pleased to have this faster process with ClipTools. Thanx, again!
Steve
2 years ago
Can't see the ClipTools icon in the menubar of my MacAir/Ventura. Seems to be hidden behind the camera notch. Tried scaling option, but doesn't work.
Love this tool. Very convenient. I have occasion to us most of the features. I've been using a variety of other methods to do the things this little app does all in one place. Thank you so much. Love your posts.
Bill Ferrol
2 years ago
Hi Gary, looks great. Following on from Eric's comment is there a way to format the date to UK/European dd/mm/yy or dd/mm/yyyy?
Please consider adding a quotation mark function that will paste a clipped item, surround it with double quotes, and convert any double quotes within it to single quotes. Example:
Original:
I tell all my friends, “You must try Macmost”, and they reply, “Wow, thanks!”.
Result:
“I tell all my friends, ‘You must try Macmost’, and they reply, ‘Wow, thanks!’.”
Charlie: An interesting take on the "convert quotes" function. Do you know of any other tools that do this? (I'd like to see how they handle certain situations that could come up).
Allan Dye
2 years ago
Very useful app, but I think I have found a problem. It also copies and stores passwords when using a password vault. This could easily forgotten or perhaps I'm missing something?
Many thanks.
Allan: Yes, most clipboard managers do because they don't know it is a password. The next version will allow you to have it ignore things copied when in specific apps, but that only works if you are actually in the password manager app, not in a browser using a password manager extension. Usually this isn't a problem because you shouldn't need to copy passwords (the password manager should fill them in directly).
Steve
1 year ago
Great App Gary. Are there any plans to extend the "Ignore Clips from Apps" so it works with Chrome Extensions? When I copy a password from say the Bitwarden extension, ClipTools does not ignore it. Thanks for all your work and generosity in keeping ClipTools free.
Steve: There's no way for the app to know if you copied something from Chrome or a Chrome extension, and what extension. All that ClipTools knows is that Chrome was the front app at the second it recognized that the clipboard changed. Is there a reason you: 1. Need to copy a password from the extension instead of using the extension to fill in the password field? 2. Care that the password is in ClipTools for the moment as it is no more vulnerable there than being in your clipboard (which it is)?
Joe W
10 months ago
Just curious. When I copy a password from my password manager the password shows up in Clip Tools. Is there any reason to be concerned about that?
Joe: Not really. It is in your Mac clipboard already. so you can accidentally paste it anywhere. And the data stored in ClipTools is part of your user account on your Mac, so like any document file you have it is protected by your account security. If you prefer ClipTools not recognize copies from a specific app, there is that functionality in the preferences and the examples already included are the most popular password managers.
This looks really useful.
Could the number to word conversion have an option to use British wording? For example, in Britain for 2345678 we would say "two million, three hundred and forty-five thousand, six hundred and seventy-eight" (i.e. add the word "and" as necessary?
Just wanted to say thanks!
I have been dreaming about such an app for many years.
You took it to an incredible level for a first version.
Bravo.
Eric: Possibly. I'm going to wait to see how people use it and what requests like this come in.
This will be handy. Thanks, Gary.
I downloaded ClipTools and then couldn't find it in the Applications folder.
Rookie mistake. As you stated, it was right up in the Menu Bar.
Thanks, Gary, for this sweet App.
What I meant to say is I thought I couldn't open it from the Applications folder. It was already open of course.
I'm going to give it a try Gary (downloaded and installed). Is there a way to delete an individual clip from the top tier without clearing the entire clipboard? I often us copy, paste with userid's and passwords. It would be nice to be able to delete a single clip with out clearing the entire clipboard. My apology if I missed this detail on the instruction page located on the MacMost web page.
Both Bob: have you tried the shift-option keys when viewing the clip tools content? That provides a Remove choice.
Bota: Yes. See the documentation page and look at the Modifiers.
How did I ever manage to be productive without this app? Really well thought out, and infinitely useful. Thanks, Gary!
Wow. Best clipboard manager ever.
Now my first request. I would like a metric conversion to work something like this:
a wing span of 72.5 feet
After I type 72.5 feet I would like to click on "Cliptools" and have it add to my sentence like this:
a wing span of 72.5 feet (22 meters)
I can't tell you how many times I have had to convert lengths weight and temperture into metric...
Great job Gary!!!!!!!!!
Kay: Calculations inside of Smart Clips is something I may have in the future.
Get app. Thanks so much. Thought I might add that you have to add this app in your settings for it to paste, still playing with it but very helpful.
How does one edit a saved clip?
Lawrence: There's no way to edit a saved clip. You'd need to paste it into something (TextEdit) and then make changes, then copy it again and save it.
I've toyed with it a little and think this will be a handy tool. Thanks for you work and providing it for free. The Smart Clip could be really useful. The only thing that has jumped out to me is that the Smart Clip window could be *much* larger. If your Smart Clip is more than a few sentences they will run off the window and make it harder to keep track of the creation process. A work around for now is simply to create the Smart Clip text in an external editor and copy/paste it into the window.
M Connors: I'm using some system windows for that now. In the future I would love to build my own windows to give more space. But until then you can always compose the text in another app like TextEdit and then paste as you mentioned.
This is a great app. Do you have any plans for creating a similar app for the ipad? Thank you.
Casey: No. Sandboxing on the iPad makes most of these functions difficult or impossible. Plus, there's no Menu Bar...
I see how to delete a smart clip but is there away to rename a smart clip? Thanks Gary!
Marcia: They don't have names. It is just the first part of the Smart Clip.
Wow! I've been making some AppleScripts from time to time to get some part of the functionality of this tool. Now all of this and much more is in one place. Very good app.
Thank you Gary for this app. I have created 2 Smart Clips. These are letters I send out often for a doctor I work for. At the end of the letter I have clickable links to our social media etc. One smart clip has those links and they are clickable. The other letter I can't get it to paste with clickable links. I hope this makes sense.
It's already useful and valuable! Thank you so much!
That looks FANTASTIC! but my 2015 iMac Mojove won't drive it. Bumma!
marcia: What's the difference between the two?
Excellent App. thank you, MacMost
Thanx, it is very useful :-)
Gary: This is an excellent utility! Very easy to use and there are keyboard shortcuts everywhere!
Also I like the calculations feature a lot.
Well done and thanks.
Incredibly good.
The app informs me of the need to allow Accessibility - but Clip Tools is not appearing in setting. Either from the link or searching directly. (Mac Studio, MacOs 13.1) Any suggestions?
Paul: If it doesn't appear there automatically, then you can do it manually by going to System Settings, Privacy & Security, Accessibility, click the + button, then look in the Applications folder and add ClipTools to the list.
Sorry I get zippo.
On the latest MacBook Air 13.6 inch 2022
Went to App Store > Downloaded > Open - NADA
Not in the menubar or anywhere else
When I tried to delete it: Can't delete app is currently open...
Still nothing.
I have Allow apps downloaded from App store on.
What on earth have I missed?
Love your site. Many thanks
David: Is perhaps the right side of your Menu Bar already full with other icons? There is only so much room and new items added there would be cut off to the left.
Super app I love it, but I have a lot of shortcut that is not working , could it be that my Mac as a french keyboard.
Thanks for the help to get it working Gary.
Great app. Really helpful. MacMost is, by far, the most helpful Mac-related site on the web. Thanks for all you do.
Is there a way to edit a smart clip?
Do you have plans to sync settings, smart clips, etc. between Macs?
Kent: Yes. See the help page and look under Modifiers for Smart Clips. Perhaps in the future I'll add iCloud syncing.
Very functional and well-designed app Gary. It helps that you understand the Mac ecosystem so well and know what features are desirable in an app. If you're looking for suggestions: I'd me more than happy to buy a nice calculator app for the iPad :), since Apple doesn't seem interested in including one in that iOS.
Great tool. Thanx! The feature I'm looking for allows for swapping the selected text with what's in the clipboard. You use it to swap two items of text: select the 1st item and copy it, then select the 2nd item and the command replaces the text with what's in the clipboard and replaces the clipboard contents with the 2nd item. Then you can select the 1st item and paste so that the two items have now been swapped.
Ken: Interesting idea. I'll add it to the list. Can you give me a practical example of its use?
Can you copy and store non-text (aka screenshot or images)?\
Moro: This is a text-only tool.
Is there a way to not save certain "copies", like from 1Password?
Love the app though, have it installed on my machines, set the configurations for it to work just right for me! Love it!! :)
Was just telling my wife about it, and she said, I need that app!
Thanks so much, Garry!
Ron: Actually, it already does this. I tested it with 1Password using the password tags they add to the clipboard to indicate that it is a password. Then ClipTools ignores it. Not all password managers use these tags and I fear some may use different tags. I'll continue to add exceptions like this as I gain intel on them.
Absolutely fantastic. Huge productivity helper. How do you manage to do everything: daily tutorials, super courses and apps? Thank you, Gary!
Hi Gary,
Great utility! Is there any way to have the option to have the history deleted/cleared out upon reboot for privacy and security concerns?
In Windows, if I press the Windows Key + V to paste my copy history, I get a popup showing me the history and what I can paste along with other utilities at the top. Is this a feature that may come to your utility? Thanks!
Joseph: I don't know about adding an auto-delete function. I'll see if others request it. As for the Windows functionality, it sounds like exactly what ClipTools already does.
Thanks for this great app! In the next version could you add, if possible, a configurable Selection Action (which can be saved) that can replace something a user defines. Something like the "Remove extra spaces" you provide but with the option to define a certain character sting, say, "*" to remove all asterisks from the text. Or perhaps replace all "-" with "_", for example.
I still don't understand why Facebook posts can have common adornments (italics, bold, etc) Was thrilled to see the upside down text pasted nicely into Facebook. You must do some font substitution for this to work. Care to share your technique? I'd like to write an editor in SwiftUI allowing a user to type an entire post, then select text and apply italics, bold, etc. However it would need to perform the substitution similar to your upside down text! What's the technique?
Thank you Gary,
I found it will copy into a number of apps including WORD and EXCEL on Mac (which I have to use for work). I admit that I missed the Windows 'clipboard' when I migrated to Mac a number of years ago with Mac's clipboard limited to one item but Windows' providing a number of 'clipped' items. Your ClipTools will save me a lot of time when writing and editing documents. Thanks again.
Obelix: It is just a straight character substitution. No font changes. So looping through the characters and replacing most (not all) letters with something that looks close enough. Like a to ɐ. There are lists of the unicode characters if you search for them.
Will this run on Monterey?
Ronald: Yes. Monterey or newer.
In response, practicality is in the eyes of the beholder. In my genealogy hobby, I am frequently correcting things that are out of order or reversed: birth and death dates, even mothers and fathers. To do the swap I currently need a temporary area: copy A to Temp, copy B to A, copy Temp to B. I've been using Quick Notes for the temporary storage area, but then this has to be cleaned up to keep it under control.
Ken: With ClipTools, you could copy A, then copy B, then paste A over B and then paste the old B from ClipTools to A.
Gary: Yes, definitely better than what I have now: 4 select–copy/paste operations with ClipTools instead of 6 that I currently have. My ideal procedure would involve only 3, but very pleased to have this faster process with ClipTools. Thanx, again!
Can't see the ClipTools icon in the menubar of my MacAir/Ventura. Seems to be hidden behind the camera notch. Tried scaling option, but doesn't work.
Steve: You have to make room for it if your menu bar is already full. See https://macmost.com/j-cliptools1 for a tutorial.
Love this tool. Very convenient. I have occasion to us most of the features. I've been using a variety of other methods to do the things this little app does all in one place. Thank you so much. Love your posts.
Hi Gary, looks great. Following on from Eric's comment is there a way to format the date to UK/European dd/mm/yy or dd/mm/yyyy?
Bill: Yes. See the documentation: https://macmost.com/cliptools
Great tool and very versatile.
I would love to see a base64 encode / decode shortcut somewhere as well.
I downloaded the app, see it in the launcher but not in the menu bar, can't figure out how to find it?
Koree: See the troubleshooting tips at https://macmost.com/j-cliptools1
Please consider adding a quotation mark function that will paste a clipped item, surround it with double quotes, and convert any double quotes within it to single quotes. Example:
Original:
I tell all my friends, “You must try Macmost”, and they reply, “Wow, thanks!”.
Result:
“I tell all my friends, ‘You must try Macmost’, and they reply, ‘Wow, thanks!’.”
Charlie: An interesting take on the "convert quotes" function. Do you know of any other tools that do this? (I'd like to see how they handle certain situations that could come up).
Very useful app, but I think I have found a problem. It also copies and stores passwords when using a password vault. This could easily forgotten or perhaps I'm missing something?
Many thanks.
Allan: Yes, most clipboard managers do because they don't know it is a password. The next version will allow you to have it ignore things copied when in specific apps, but that only works if you are actually in the password manager app, not in a browser using a password manager extension. Usually this isn't a problem because you shouldn't need to copy passwords (the password manager should fill them in directly).
Great App Gary. Are there any plans to extend the "Ignore Clips from Apps" so it works with Chrome Extensions? When I copy a password from say the Bitwarden extension, ClipTools does not ignore it. Thanks for all your work and generosity in keeping ClipTools free.
Steve: There's no way for the app to know if you copied something from Chrome or a Chrome extension, and what extension. All that ClipTools knows is that Chrome was the front app at the second it recognized that the clipboard changed. Is there a reason you: 1. Need to copy a password from the extension instead of using the extension to fill in the password field? 2. Care that the password is in ClipTools for the moment as it is no more vulnerable there than being in your clipboard (which it is)?
Just curious. When I copy a password from my password manager the password shows up in Clip Tools. Is there any reason to be concerned about that?
Joe: Not really. It is in your Mac clipboard already. so you can accidentally paste it anywhere. And the data stored in ClipTools is part of your user account on your Mac, so like any document file you have it is protected by your account security. If you prefer ClipTools not recognize copies from a specific app, there is that functionality in the preferences and the examples already included are the most popular password managers.