StackClip

A tiny macOS menu bar utility that adds two missing clipboard features:

• Append copy — press ⌘⇧C to copy the current selection onto the end of what's already on your clipboard, instead of replacing it. Collect snippets from several places, paste them all at once.
• Clipboard history — like Windows' Win+V. The menu bar icon lists your last 50 copied texts; click one to put it back on the clipboard. History survives restarts.

Passwords are safe: copies marked as concealed (the convention used by password managers, org.nspasteboard.ConcealedType) are never recorded.

Install

Download the app: grab StackClip.zip from the Releases page, unzip it, and drag StackClip.app to your Applications folder.

Because the app isn't notarized yet, the first launch needs a right-click: right-click StackClip.app → Open → Open. After that it opens normally.

1. Click the menu bar icon → Launch at Login so it starts automatically.
2. The first time you press ⌘⇧C, grant Accessibility access when prompted (or via the menu's warning item) so it can read your selection.

Build from source

Requires macOS 13+ and Xcode (or the Swift toolchain).

swift build -c release
.build/release/StackClip

Or during development: swift run StackClip.

Accessibility permission

Append copy reads your current selection through the macOS Accessibility API, so the app needs Accessibility access. While permission is missing, the status menu shows a "⚠️ Append Copy needs Accessibility access…" item — click it to jump straight to System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility. Pressing ⌘⇧C without permission beeps and opens the same pane. Grant the permission, then restart the app.

Note: when you launch StackClip from a terminal, macOS attributes the permission to your terminal app — grant it there and it persists across rebuilds. If you run the binary directly, the grant is tied to the binary's signature and resets on every rebuild.

Usage

1. Copy something normally (⌘C).
2. Select more text anywhere and press ⌘⇧C — it's appended to the clipboard. On success the menu bar icon briefly turns into a checkmark and plays a "Tink"; if nothing copyable was selected, you get a beep.
3. Paste (⌘V) to get everything at once.
4. Click the clipboard icon in the menu bar to browse history; click an entry to restore it. While the menu is open, pressing a bare digit 1–9 picks the corresponding entry, and hovering an entry shows a tooltip with more of its text.
5. Pick how appended snippets are joined via the Append Separator submenu: New Line (default), Space, or Tab. The choice is remembered across restarts.

Roadmap

• Configurable separator (newline / space / tab)
• Proper .app bundle + downloadable release + Launch at Login
• Signed & notarized build (Homebrew cask)
• Configurable hotkey
• Paste-on-click option for history items

License

MIT