ClipBob User Guide
ClipBob is clipboard history for your Mac, in plain words, and with Pro, on all your Macs. Everything you copy is kept; one shortcut brings it back.
The loop
- Copy anything, the way you always do. ClipBob keeps it: its flower in the menu bar fills for a moment.
- Press ⌥⌘V: from any app. Your history opens, newest first.
- Press ↩ on a clip. It's on your clipboard.
- Press ⌘V to paste it wherever you are, or turn on Paste directly in Settings → General, and ↩ pastes for you (macOS asks once).
That's all of it. The first time you open ClipBob, its welcome page lets you try each step for real.
The panel
At the top is the bar where you type. Below it, your clips on the left and the selected one on the right: text, code in its colours, a picture, a document's first page. Under both, a line says what your clips hold; with Apple Intelligence on, a sentence about them too.
Use ↑ ↓ to choose a clip and Esc to close.
Three ways to find
- Just type: ClipBob reads what you mean (an app, a kind, a day, a Mac). images from Safari yesterday, the last 5 links, swift code, links without github, what did I copy this week, code from the last 3 days, links from this quarter. Words inside pictures and screenshots are found too.
- = to search: exactly what you type, nothing read into it: =last 5 finds those words, not your last five clips.
- ? for Apple Intelligence: ask in your own words, then press ↩. It fixes your spelling, on your Mac, and never changes what you asked: when its version would, ClipBob reads your words as you typed them.
The symbol at the start of the bar shows which you're using.
The footer
Two quiet lines sit under the bar.
- Line 1 is ClipBob's own: how many clips you have and of what kind, or, while you type, what it read in your words. A notice takes this line when something needs you, such as iCloud being full or a Mac needing an update. When saving is paused, the bar says Paused beside the pause mark, and the results end in · Paused while you type.
- Line 2 is Apple Intelligence's, marked with its symbol: one sentence about what you've been copying in this scope. It shows when the bar is empty, and in the prompt before you type. Without Apple Intelligence, or when it has nothing to say, a tip shows instead.
- After ↩ in the prompt, the answer takes both lines: Read as: …, which is what Apple Intelligence read your question as.
Scopes
Press Tab to open the scopes beside the bar and step through them: Text (blue), Commands (green), Code (violet), Images (rose), Files & links (teal), Pinned (orchid). ⇧Tab to go back. Stop, and they fold into one circle, where you are; the panel and the flower's centre take the scope's colour. Click the circle to choose with the mouse. Scopes filter, they don't sort: a link in a note is in Text and in Files & links. Commands and Code come with Pro, and so does your own order (Settings → Appearance).
Pasting
| Key | What it pastes |
|---|---|
| ↩ | The clip as it was copied |
| ⌥↩ | Plain text. With Pro: just the commands, a picture as TIFF, files as paths |
| ⌘↩ | Plain text, card numbers and IBANs masked. With Pro: keys masked too |
| ⌥⌘↩ | Plain text, card numbers and IBANs masked, as ⌘↩. With Pro: a command clip's commands alone |
| ⌘1 – ⌘9 | That row |
A file pastes as the file itself until ClipBob restarts, then as its path.
Keeping and removing
| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
| ⌘P | Pin: pinned clips are kept whatever the history limit; ⌘P again unpins |
| ⌘L | Hide: out of the list on every Mac |
| ⇧⌘. | Show your hidden clips (Touch ID or your password first), or go back |
| ⌘⌫ | Delete: press twice; gone from every Mac, kept in ?bin for 30 days |
| ⇧⌘P | Pause or resume saving copies |
Skills
Skills are run from the prompt: type ?, then / and the skill's name, then ↩. ?/ on its own lists every skill below the bar, with what it does. Type to narrow the list, ↑↓ to choose, ↩ to run, Tab to complete. Anywhere else, / is just a character, so /Users finds paths.
- ?/help: ClipBob Help. ?/manual (or ?/man): the manual, inside ClipBob
- ?/hidden: your hidden clips
- ?/secrets: the clips holding a key or a card, masked
- ?/local: the clips that stay on this Mac
- ?/bin: what you deleted, kept on this Mac for 30 days. Touch ID opens it; ↩ or Recover brings a clip back on every Mac, and ⌘⌫ twice deletes it for good
- ?/settings: Settings
- ?/pause and ?/resume: stop saving copies for a while, or start again
- ?/quit: quit ClipBob (it asks first)
Skills that act on many clips, with Pro. Say which clips after the skill, in plain words; the list shows exactly those, at most 100 at a time:
- ?/delete: ?/delete screenshots from last week, ?/delete large images before this month. ↩ asks, in red; ⌘⌫ and Touch ID delete them from every Mac, into the Bin
- ?/recover: ?/recover screenshots from yesterday brings them back from the Bin, on every Mac
- ?/hide and ?/unhide: ?/hide everything from Slack yesterday; unhiding asks Touch ID first
Built with Apple Intelligence's on-device model: where it's on, the first ↩ tidies your words (pictres ovr 10mb becomes pictures over 10 MB) and ClipBob's own rules pick the clips. Without it, the skills still work: ClipBob's rules read your words as typed. Either way each one asks before it acts, and your words are read on this Mac. Sizes read as you'd say them: over 10 MB, under 500 KB; large is over 10 MB.
Anything after ? that isn't a skill is a question for Apple Intelligence.
Secrets and personal details
ClipBob never saves what a password manager marks as a password, or copies that apps mark as temporary. It recognises card numbers, IBANs and US Social Security numbers, and masks them in the list and the preview. Pasting one as it is asks for Touch ID or your password first; ⌘↩ pastes it masked without asking. With Pro, API keys, tokens and private keys are masked everywhere too, and you can add your own patterns. Settings → Privacy has the switches, including one that keeps such clips off iCloud.
Screenshots
With Pro, choose the folders your screenshots are saved to in Settings → History → Also save, and new screenshots join your history, named, and searchable by the words in them.
On all your Macs
With Pro, turn on Sync across your Macs in Settings → iCloud, on each Mac signed into the same Apple Account. Clips copied on one Mac show on the others, marked with the Mac they came from. Settings → iCloud shows the room they take, lists your Macs, and can remove one along with its clips. File clips and very large items stay on the Mac they were copied on.
Each Mac keeps its own settings, in your iCloud: a new Mac starts with those of the Mac you changed last, and a Mac you reinstall gets its own back. The storage limit and the sync limit, in Settings → iCloud, apply to all your Macs.
The menu bar
ClipBob's flower lives in the menu bar (or the Dock, or both: Settings → Appearance). Its centre fills each time a copy is saved. Bars in a dimmed flower mean saving is paused, and the panel's footer says so too; press ⇧⌘P to start again.
Settings
Press ⌘, with the panel open, or choose Settings from the flower's menu.
- General: start at login, sync across your Macs, your edition.
- Appearance: the panel's size, where ClipBob shows, and how it tells you it saved a copy.
- Shortcuts: every key ClipBob knows, and the one that opens it, yours to set.
- Capture: what ClipBob saves, your screenshot folders, and how big a clip may be.
- History: how long clips are kept on this Mac.
- iCloud: the room your clips take, what may sync, and your Macs.
- Privacy: what's never saved, what's masked, apps to ignore.
- Pro: your plan, or the plans and what Pro adds.
ClipBob Pro
For power users, developers and creators: $2.99 a month · $19.99 a year (the first month free for new subscribers) · $59.99 once, in Settings → Pro.
- On all your Macs: your history syncs through your own iCloud, and a new or reinstalled Mac gets it back
- ⌥↩ pastes just the commands from a terminal session, and a picture as TIFF, files as their paths
- Screenshots join your history, and pictures are found by what's in them: the words and things in them
- Grid: your history as cards, pictures big enough to pick by eye
- Commands and Code: two scopes, coloured in 50+ languages
- Keys masked everywhere, with Touch ID before one pastes as it is, and your own patterns
- Minimal: the search bar alone until you type, for screen sharing and presenting
Free, on one Mac: your history, finding in your own words, Search and the prompt, plain text with ⌥↩, and the protections above.
Every key
| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
| ⌥⌘V | Open ClipBob, from anywhere (yours to change) |
| Type | Find: ClipBob reads what you mean |
| = | Search exactly |
| ? | Prompt: Apple Intelligence, in your own words |
| ? then / | Skills: ?/help, ?/bin, ?/settings, … |
| ⇥ ⇧⇥ | Scopes |
| ↑ ↓ | Choose a clip |
| ↩ ⌥↩ ⌘↩ ⌥⌘↩ | Paste: as copied, the alternative, masked, the alternative masked |
| ⌘1 – ⌘9 | Paste that row |
| ⌘P | Pin |
| ⌘L | Hide |
| ⇧⌘. | Hidden clips |
| ⌘⌫ ⌘⌫ | Delete |
| ⇧⌘P | Pause or resume |
| ⌘, | Settings |
| Esc | Close |
Need help?
See Support, or email support@clipbob.app.