Maccy vs Copydrop: which one fits how you work?
Let's start where most comparison pages won't: if Maccy is enough for you, use Maccy — it's free, open source, and great at what it does. This page is for figuring out whether it's enough for you.
The short version
Choose Maccy if your clipboard life is mostly text, you want something free and open source, and a compact menu-bar list is all the interface you need.
Choose Copydrop if you also copy images, files and design objects, want to see what you're about to paste in a full preview, and want every paste to keep its exact original form. One-time purchase, same local-first privacy.
What Maccy does well
Maccy is deliberately minimal: fast, keyboard-first, native, open source (MIT), free to download — with an optional $9.99 support purchase on the Mac App Store. It keeps your history local and stays out of your way. As the community default answer to "which clipboard manager?", it earns the recommendation.
Where the two differ
Copydrop keeps Maccy's virtues — local-first, keyboard-first, native, no bloat — and adds the layer Maccy intentionally leaves out:
- Rich previews. Full text previews and real image thumbnails — instead of a cropped one-line menu entry. You confirm what you're pasting before you paste it.
- Full paste fidelity. You paste exactly what you copied — RTF stays RTF, a PNG stays a PNG, a styled table stays styled.
- Images, files and app-native objects. Copy a Figma layer, paste a Figma layer. Cards show real thumbnails, not just file names.
- Find by context. Every card is tagged with the app it came from, so you can find things by where you copied them, not just what they said.
| Maccy | Copydrop | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, open source ($9.99 MAS support purchase) | $8.99 — one-time |
| History stays local | Yes | Yes — nothing you copy leaves your Mac, no account |
| Keyboard-first | Yes | Yes — ⌘⇧C → type → Enter, ⌘1–⌘9 |
| Previews | Compact list entries | Rich — full text previews, real thumbnails |
| Images & files | Basic | First-class, with thumbnails |
| App-native objects | — | Pastes the exact original form |
| Source app on each item | No | Yes |
| Open source | Yes (MIT) | No |
Questions people ask
Why pay when Maccy is free?
If the list above reads as "nice but I'd never use it," don't pay — Maccy will serve you well. People who switch usually do it for one specific moment: seeing a full preview of an image before pasting it, or pasting a styled table that lands still styled. Try both; Copydrop's 4-day trial needs no card.
Is Copydrop as light as Maccy?
It's a small native app that idles in the menu bar — no Dock icon, a few MB of memory, panel up in milliseconds. Restraint is the design goal for both apps; they differ in what happens once the panel is open.
Try Copydrop free for 4 days
Full app, no card, no account. Then $8.99 once — one-time, no subscription.
Try Copydrop freeYour clipboard history never leaves your Mac.
More comparisons: Copydrop vs Paste · Copydrop vs Raycast · vs the built-in history
Sources (verified July 2026): Maccy — maccy.app and its Mac App Store listing. If anything here is outdated, tell us at hello@copydrop.app and we'll fix it.