Clipboard history

Tinycast keeps what you copy, so you can find it again and paste it back into the app you were using.

Clipboard history is the one feature that ships on. Settings → Clipboard → Enable Clipboard History turns it off. Off means off: nothing is recorded, the history file closes, and the Clipboard History command and its shortcut go away. What you already saved stays, and Clear history still works while it is off.

Opening it

• tab from the launcher (after AI Chat, if AI is on).
• The Clipboard History command, or its global shortcut in Settings → Clipboard.
• Clipboard History in the Tinycast menu bar menu.

The footer names where a paste will land, like "Paste to Notes", so you always know the target.

Actions

Default action in Settings swaps return and ⌘return. Set it to Copy to Clipboard and return copies while ⌘return pastes. Double-click and the number shortcuts follow the same choice. ⌥return always pastes.

Pasting needs the Accessibility permission.

Drag any row out into another app. It is always a copy, so the entry stays in your history. When the drop lands, the palette closes, just like a paste.

What it keeps

• Text, with a preview.
• Images, like screenshots, stored as PNG files.
• Files you copy in Finder. Tinycast saves a reference to the file where it is, never a copy. Up to 32 files per copy are recorded. Pasting gives apps the file itself, and gives text fields its path.
• Colors. A copied #FF5733, rgb(…) or hsl(…) shows as a swatch.

A file that has since been moved or deleted stays in history, because where it was is still useful. Pasting it shows a message instead of failing silently. For a file entry, ⌘K also offers Show in Finder, Open and Copy Path.

Video and audio files can be played in the preview. Nothing plays until you press play.

Filtering by type

⌘P opens a filter at the right of the search field. Seven choices, and each entry belongs to exactly one:

All Types · Text Only · Images Only · Files Only · Colors Only · Links Only · Emails Only

A copied URL is a link, not a kind of text, so Text Only means prose. A color is not text either.

Each filter has its own empty message, so "Clipboard history is empty" never shows over a history that only looks empty because of a filter. The filter stays available on an empty list, so you can always switch back.

Links and emails are worked out from the text each time, never stored. Anything over 2,048 bytes, or with a space in it, counts as plain text. A bare domain must be lower case and end in a common ending, so Safari.app, report.pdf and index.html stay text.

Pinning

⌘. pins the selected entry.

• Pinned entries sit in one Pinned section at the top, in the order you pinned them.
• They lead both the full list and your search results.
• ⌘1 to ⌘9, then ⌘0, act on the first ten visible pins.
• Pins survive the retention limit. Clear history still removes everything.
• Pasting a pinned entry does not move it.
• Unpinning makes it the newest entry, instead of dropping it back into an old date group.

Searching text inside images and PDFs

Search text in images and PDFs is off by default. Turn it on and Tinycast reads the text in your copied images, image files and PDFs, so a search for a word in a screenshot finds it.

• It happens on your Mac, while you are not typing or moving the mouse, one item at a time.
• It runs in a separate helper process, so Tinycast itself stays light.
• It covers files up to 32 MB and the first 64 pages of a PDF.
• The recognized text is only used for search. Pasting still gives you the original.
• Turning it off stops the work. Text already recognized is kept and reused if you turn it back on.

This setting is not included in backups.

Settings

Settings → Clipboard

Disabled Applications starts with Keychain Access and Passwords, so Tinycast never records what you copy out of a password manager. Add your own. Copies that apps mark as secret are skipped too.

Limits worth knowing

History lives in clipboard.sqlite3, with images beside it, in Tinycast's Application Support folder. It is there, not in Caches, so Time Machine backs it up and macOS never clears it behind your back.

• Tinycast checks the clipboard twice a second. Its own pastes are marked and skipped, so pasting from Tinycast never adds a new entry.
• The newest 1,000 entries are kept ready in memory. Search reaches further back.
• Search needs at least three characters to use the full index. Shorter searches look through the recent entries in memory.
• A search returns at most 200 matches before the type filter applies, so a narrow filter on a broad search can show fewer rows than your history holds.