A New Free Mac Utility App: ClipTools

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
    1 year 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
    1 year 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.

    1 year ago

    Eric: Possibly. I'm going to wait to see how people use it and what requests like this come in.

    John Michaels
    1 year ago

    This will be handy. Thanks, Gary.

    Peter Weiler
    1 year 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
    1 year 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
    1 year 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
    1 year ago

    Both Bob: have you tried the shift-option keys when viewing the clip tools content? That provides a Remove choice.

    1 year ago

    Bota: Yes. See the documentation page and look at the Modifiers.

    Ron B.
    1 year ago

    How did I ever manage to be productive without this app? Really well thought out, and infinitely useful. Thanks, Gary!

    Kay Fisher
    1 year 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...

    Great job Gary!!!!!!!!!

    1 year ago

    Kay: Calculations inside of Smart Clips is something I may have in the future.

    Ken Steingart
    1 year ago

    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.

    Lawrence Grumboski
    1 year ago

    How does one edit a saved clip?

    1 year ago

    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
    1 year 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.

    1 year ago

    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
    1 year ago

    This is a great app. Do you have any plans for creating a similar app for the ipad? Thank you.

    1 year ago

    Casey: No. Sandboxing on the iPad makes most of these functions difficult or impossible. Plus, there's no Menu Bar...

    Marcia
    1 year ago

    I see how to delete a smart clip but is there away to rename a smart clip? Thanks Gary!

    1 year ago

    Marcia: They don't have names. It is just the first part of the Smart Clip.

    Eduardo
    1 year 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
    1 year 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
    1 year ago

    It's already useful and valuable! Thank you so much!

    Narelle
    1 year ago

    That looks FANTASTIC! but my 2015 iMac Mojove won't drive it. Bumma!

    1 year ago

    marcia: What's the difference between the two?

    Muhammed Rafeeque
    1 year ago

    Excellent App. thank you, MacMost

    Michael L.
    1 year ago

    Thanx, it is very useful :-)

    Phil Hopkins
    1 year ago

    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
    1 year ago

    Incredibly good.

    Paul
    1 year 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?

    1 year ago

    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
    1 year 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?

    Love your site. Many thanks

    1 year ago

    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
    1 year 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
    1 year ago

    Thanks for the help to get it working Gary.

    Kent
    1 year 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?

    1 year ago

    Kent: Yes. See the help page and look under Modifiers for Smart Clips. Perhaps in the future I'll add iCloud syncing.

    nick
    1 year 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
    1 year 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.

    1 year ago

    Ken: Interesting idea. I'll add it to the list. Can you give me a practical example of its use?

    Moro Pant
    1 year ago

    Can you copy and store non-text (aka screenshot or images)?\

    1 year ago

    Moro: This is a text-only tool.

    Ron
    1 year ago

    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!

    1 year ago

    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
    1 year ago

    Absolutely fantastic. Huge productivity helper. How do you manage to do everything: daily tutorials, super courses and apps? Thank you, Gary!

    Joseph
    1 year 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!

    1 year ago

    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
    1 year 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
    1 year 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
    1 year 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.

    1 year ago

    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.

    Ronald Freifeld
    1 year ago

    Will this run on Monterey?

    1 year ago

    Ronald: Yes. Monterey or newer.

    Ken Nellis
    1 year ago

    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.

    1 year ago

    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
    1 year 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
    1 year 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.

    1 year ago

    Steve: You have to make room for it if your menu bar is already full. See https://macmost.com/j-cliptools1 for a tutorial.

    Lee
    1 year ago

    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
    1 year 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?

    1 year ago

    Bill: Yes. See the documentation: https://macmost.com/cliptools

    Pyotr
    1 year ago

    Great tool and very versatile.
    I would love to see a base64 encode / decode shortcut somewhere as well.

    Koree
    1 year ago

    I downloaded the app, see it in the launcher but not in the menu bar, can't figure out how to find it?

    1 year ago

    Koree: See the troubleshooting tips at https://macmost.com/j-cliptools1

    Charlie
    1 year ago

    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!’.”

    1 year ago

    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
    1 year 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.

    1 year ago

    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
    9 months 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.

    9 months ago

    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
    2 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?

    2 months ago

    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.

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