HandyPaste

Appearance

Settings ​

Open Settings with ⌘, in the library, or Settings… in the menu bar menu.

General ​

  • Open at login: starts HandyPaste quietly in the menu bar when you log in. If macOS asks you to approve it, a button takes you to Login Items & Extensions.
  • Show in menu bar: the hand icon and its menu. With it off, use the picker shortcut, or open HandyPaste from the Applications folder.
  • Appearance: follow the system, or always light or dark.
  • Language: follow the system, or pick one of HandyPaste's ten languages.
  • Keyboard Shortcuts: record new shortcuts for Open Picker (⌥⌘V) and Save Selection as Snippet (⌥⌘C).
  • HandyPaste Pro: shows whether Pro is unlocked, and opens the Pro window.
  • Statistics: see below.

Pasting ​

  • When you choose a snippet:
    • Paste it into the current app (the default, needs Accessibility permission), or
    • Copy it to the clipboard, and you paste it yourself.
  • Put back what was on the clipboard after pasting: off by default, so the snippet stays on the clipboard and ⌘V pastes it again. Turn it on and HandyPaste restores what you had copied before, shortly after pasting. While it does this, it marks its own clipboard entries as temporary so clipboard-history apps skip them. A password manager's entry is never written back.
  • Permission: whether Accessibility access is allowed, with a button to open the right pane of System Settings.

Variables ​

Values you type often, used in snippets as {{var:Name}}. See Variables. Pro

Backup ​

Export Snippets… and Import Snippets…, how much your library holds, and when you last exported it from this Mac. See iCloud sync and backups.

iCloud ​

Sync snippets with iCloud, the sync status in plain words, and when it last synced. Turning sync on or off takes effect after a restart, which HandyPaste offers to do. See iCloud sync and backups.

AI Apps Pro ​

  • Let AI apps use your snippets: off by default. Lets Claude and other MCP apps search, fill in and save snippets, and use your Prompts folder. They never see your clipboard.
  • Allow AI apps to change and delete snippets: off by default. Also lets them edit, move and rename snippets, and move them to Recently Deleted.
  • Claude Desktop ▸ Copy Configuration and Claude Code ▸ Copy Command: what each app needs to connect, with HandyPaste's location filled in.

See AI apps (MCP).

Statistics ​

HandyPaste can count how you use your snippets, on this Mac only. It's never synced and never sent anywhere.

  • Keep usage statistics on this Mac is on by default. Each paste or copy records the time, which snippet, how many characters, and which app it was pasted into. Never the snippet's text.
  • Show Statistics (also Window ▸ Statistics, the library toolbar and the menu bar menu) shows uses this week, this month and in total, characters inserted, time saved (at about 40 words a minute), and your most used snippet. With Pro, you also get uses per day for the last 30 days, your top ten snippets and the five apps you paste into most.
  • Clear Statistics… deletes everything recorded, after asking.

Turning statistics off stops recording immediately. Entries older than two years are removed automatically.