I utilized a complimentary application to resolve my main issue with macOS.

      I recently found myself helping my sister with a research project. Writing a science paper is often an exhausting endeavor, as it can be incredibly tedious, yet demands precision in every statement. Citations play a vital role, and depending on your chosen topic, you may need to incorporate a number of links throughout your writing.

      In my situation, my citation list contained over 140 links, many of which were open in various tabs, pushing Chrome to its limits. However, the most challenging aspect was not the struggling browser but having to navigate through tabs just to copy the URL or citation information from each research paper.

      It tested my patience, particularly since macOS doesn't offer a native clipboard function, despite featuring a universal clipboard capability. Eventually, I switched to Windows, where I happily utilized the Win+V shortcut to access the native clipboard manager.

      Shortly after, I embarked on a quest to find a decent macOS clipboard manager that was affordable and covered the essentials. My search led me to Maccy, an open-source clipboard manager for macOS that I now highly recommend to all Mac users.

      Why Maccy?

      My colleague, Alex Blake, is a dedicated user of Paste, a robust macOS clipboard manager. However, I was hesitant to try it, not because of its $9.99 price tag, but because I was unsure if I needed something as advanced as Paste.

      I was looking for an app that was clean and simple. After sifting through numerous Reddit and forum posts, I discovered Maccy's GitHub page, an open-source project managed by Alex Rodionov. Why did I decide to trust it?

      To start, it has accumulated over a million downloads on GitHub, indicating its status as a favored community project. Over the past four years, the open-source community has contributed more than two thousand updates to enhance the clipboard manager.

      The only requirement is that your Mac must be running macOS Sonoma or a later version. You can download the app for free directly from its app repository, opt for Homebrew, purchase it from the dedicated website, or install it through the Mac App Store. While Apple's app repository will charge you $9.99, I recommend downloading it directly from the website to get it for half the price.

      How does Maccy function?

      Setting up Maccy is quite simple. If you download it directly and not from the App Store, you will need to grant trust permission before installation. Once installed, it appears as a dedicated shortcut in the right section of the menu bar.

      Every time you press Command + C, the selected content is saved to the clipboard. By default, you can open the clipboard using the Command + Shift + C (⌘+⇧+C) shortcut, but it can be adjusted as per your preference.

      In my case, this shortcut conflicted with the Google Docs shortcut for checking word count, so I changed my Maccy clipboard shortcut to Control + Shift + C.

      If you use platforms other than Docs, you don't need to deal with custom shortcuts; just remember the ⌘+⇧+C combination. That’s all there is to it; there's no significant learning curve, and you're all set.

      Of course, if you want to dive deeper, you can check out the user guide to discover additional shortcuts that may enhance your efficiency. However, for the basic task of accessing the clipboard and retrieving an item, Maccy performs exceptionally well.

      If you prefer using your mouse, simply click the leaf icon in the menu bar to open the Maccy clipboard. The nine most recent items are displayed in a drop-down menu with numerical shortcuts, followed by other items in chronological order.

      To insert a copied item, just click on it and then use the paste command (or shortcut) where you want to place it. Alternatively, you can skip the clicking and directly paste any item using the format Command + Number (like ⌘+4) for the specific clipboard entry.

      Minor, but important conveniences

      When hovering over any item in the Maccy clipboard list, you can see its source, how many times it has been copied, and the last (and first) time it was used.

      What I appreciate most about Maccy? It features a native search field at the top. Going further, the app even allows you to specify how the search function operates. Whether you want to search for exact matches or broadly matching items, you have that flexibility.

      Maccy offers four different types of clipboard search functionalities based on your needs. You can also customize how pasting operates. By default, when you click or press Enter on an item in the clipboard list, it gets pasted into the macOS clipboard, requiring a follow-up paste command in your desired location. However, you can enable the “paste automatically” option in Maccy’s Preferences to skip this intermediate step and directly paste the selected content.

      If the list of copied items becomes too