v1.0 — Now available

Stop losing what you just copied

ClipSlots gives you 9 keyboard-triggered clipboard slots. Press a hotkey to save, press another to paste — in any app, instantly. A tiny macOS daemon, no GUI.

Install

GitHub

ClipSlots mascot — a purple octopus holding numbered clipboards

One daemon. Zero bloat.

A single Swift binary with no GUI, no Electron, no subscription. Runs quietly in the background and gets out of your way.

9 clipboard slots

Copy something, press Ctrl+Opt+3, it's saved. Press Ctrl+3 later, it's back. Slots persist until you clear them.

Works in every app

System-wide hotkeys that work whether you're in VS Code, Chrome, Figma, or Terminal. No focus switching.

Not just text

Copies images, RTF, HTML, and file references exactly as-is. What you copy is what you paste.

Starts on login, stays hidden

A launchd daemon that runs in the background. No menubar icon, no dock icon, no interruptions.

One config file

Edit ~/.config/clipslots/config.toml to change hotkeys, slot count, and logging. Hot-reloads on save.

Full CLI control

clipslots status, clipslots list, clipslots config --edit. Script it, alias it, pipe it.

See it in action

clipslots

$ clipslots --help
OVERVIEW: Lightweight clipboard slot manager for macOS

USAGE: clipslots <subcommand>

OPTIONS:
  --version       Show the version.
  -h, --help      Show help information.

SUBCOMMANDS:
  save            Save current clipboard content to a slot
  paste           Load slot content to clipboard
  list            Show all slots with content preview
  clear           Clear one or all slots
  start           Start the ClipSlots daemon
  stop            Stop the ClipSlots daemon
  restart         Restart the ClipSlots daemon
  status          Show daemon status and configuration
  config          Show or edit configuration
  permissions     Check and guide through permission setup

$ clipslots start
ClipSlots daemon started successfully
Logs: /tmp/clipslots.log

$ clipslots status
ClipSlots Status
────────────────
Daemon:      Running (PID: 48291)
Accessible:  Yes
Slots:       5
Logging:     on

Keybinds:
  Save:      Ctrl+Opt+[1-5]
  Paste:     Ctrl+[1-5]

$ clipslots list
Slot 1: Text (42 chars)
Slot 2: Text (128 chars)
Slot 3: Image (PNG)
Slot 4: (empty)
Slot 5: (empty)

$ clipslots config
ClipSlots Configuration
───────────────────────
Config file: ~/.config/clipslots/config.toml

Slots:       5
Logging:     on

Keybinds:
  Save:      ctrl+option+{n}
  Paste:     ctrl+{n}

Run 'clipslots config --edit' to open in editor.

Your Mac won't notice it

ClipSlots uses zero CPU and around 10MB of RAM. Here's proof — real Activity Monitor screenshots with the daemon running.

0% CPU

Activity Monitor showing clipslots using 10.3 MB RAM

~10 MB RAM

Install in 30 seconds

Clone, build, grant one permission, and you're done.

Build from source

Clone, build, done. Homebrew tap coming soon.

Grant accessibility

macOS needs this to register global hotkeys. One-time step.

Start

That's it. Hotkeys are now live.

Terminal

# Clone and build
git clone https://github.com/olafglad/clipSlots.git
cd clipSlots
swift build -c release
cp .build/release/clipslots /usr/local/bin/

# Set up and run
clipslots permissions
clipslots start

Stop losing what you just copied

One daemon. Zero bloat.

See it in action

Your Mac won't notice it

Install in 30 seconds

Free, open source, no catch.