Differences Between
CopyPaste Pro & CopyPaste
What is CopyPaste?
* To learn more read the ‘History of the clipboard’.
CopyPaste Pro
2007+
This app has been around for many years and had a slow steady organic growth and evolution between 2007 till today. It was written in Objective-C. CopyPaste Pro has been around for many years and solid and loved by many users.
Required OS
Mac OS 10.15 to 13+
CopyPaste
2022+
This app is the newest in the CopyPaste family. It is not an upgrade, it’s totally new and completely rewritten in Swift, Apple’s latest programming language to code apps. It has a different user interface and features from CopyPaste Pro.
Required OS
Mac OS 12 to 13+
Visual Differences Between
CopyPaste Pro & The New CopyPaste Icons
Icons for CopyPaste Pro & CopyPaste 2022
 |  |
| Older ‘CopyPaste Pro’ | New ‘CopyPaste’ |
 |  |
| Older Menubar icon | New Menubar icon |
For the new CopyPaste the icon at top-right is the file icon. At bottom-right is the new CopyPaste menubar icon.
Its important to realize that these 2 apps are both very similar and very different. Showing features in a list doesn’t do either of them justice. You can describe a strawberry as tart, sweet, red, heart shaped, juicy, etc but you don’t know a strawberry till you taste it. In addition to browsing this list, we recommend trying them to really know ‘grok’ them.
Comparing Specs For
CopyPaste Pro and CopyPaste
| Features | CopyPaste Pro (2007) | CopyPaste (2023) |
|---|---|---|
| App Icon | | |
| Menu Bar Icon | | |
| Multiple Clip Manager (saves history clips, custom clip sets) | only limited by RAM memory | only limited by RAM memory |
| Saves All Clips (saved in history and custom named clips sets) | Yes, after purchase | Yes in 1 month trial and after purchase |
| Clip Sets (custom names, more permanent clips) | Yes, | Yes, unlimited, easy access, editable, available in menu and Clip Browser. Move clips from History to any Clip Set. |
| Clip History (remembers every copy or cut) | Yes | Yes |
| Clip Editor | No | Yes, built in |
| Clip Actions (transforms clip) | 23 actions | 42 actions |
| TriggerClip (type a few chars to paste any clip) | No | Yes, available to use with any clip in any Clip Set |
| Clip Browser-visual display of clips | Horizontal Browser | Horizontal and Vertical Browser, Colorful, Informative, Add Title, Add Trigger, Tap-to-Paste, Drag&Drop, Actions, TriggerClip, Instant Access |
| Clip Manager (edit and move clips to different Clip Sets) | No | Yes |
| Clip Visibility | preview in the menu | preview text and images in Clip Browser and menu by holding shift key |
| Clip Append-hotkey to select and add multiple selections to one clip. | Yes | Yes |
| Backup Clip Sets & Clips | No | Yes, backup data daily, weekly and monthly |
| Emoji Panel | No | Yes - copy emojis to clips |
| Control activity of pasteboard types via prefs | No | Yes |
| Move Clips Between Clip Sets | No | Yes by dragging between different Clip Sets in Clip Manager |
| Paste From Any clip in any Clip Set | Yes | Yes - via tap to paste and drag & drop. |
| Paste clip by tap | Yes | Yes |
| Paste clip by number | No | Yes - paste via the clip number. |
| Paste multiple clips by sequence | No | Yes - paste a sequence or non-consecutive selectable group of clips |
| Paste as plain text by hotkey or all the time (pref) | by hotkey and all the time | by hotkey, by action and all the time (option) |
| Open URLs with hotkey | No | Yes - command key and click to open url in clip. |
| Preview URL In Clip | No | Yes - in menu hold down shift key and hold cursor over clip. Clip Browser allows previewing all clips at any size. |
| iCloud | No | Yes |
| Network with iPhone/iPad | No | Coming |
| Web Page | CopyPaste Pro | CopyPaste |
| Price | $20 | $30 |
History of the Clipboard
CopyPaste is an app created in 1993 by Peter Hoerster. CopyPaste is the first app by at least a decade to add multiple clipboards to the Mac OS. In the first version 10 clipboards (clips) were added since that time more clips were added and now are only limited by the amount of memory in the computer. CopyPaste is the trademark for the name of the app.
It turns out to be useful to have more than one clipboard. So, CopyPaste became very popular. There have been many major and minor versions of CopyPaste in the years since it was first created. Currently there are 2 versions. One called ‘CopyPaste Pro’ which has been available since 2007 and is still available for sale and is actively used by MANY users. The newest member of the family is called, ‘CopyPaste’. Below we discuss how these 2 are different.