ClipBob User Guide
ClipBob is clipboard history you can ask, on all your Macs. Everything you copy is kept; one shortcut brings it back.
The loop
- Copy anything, the way you always do. ClipBob keeps it — its flower in the menu bar fills for a moment.
- Press ⌥⌘V — from any app. Your history opens, newest first.
- Press ↩ on a clip. It's on your clipboard.
- Press ⌘V to paste it wherever you are.
That's all of it. The first time you open ClipBob, its welcome page lets you try each step for real.
The panel
At the top is the Ask bar. Below it, your clips on the left and the selected one on the right — text, code in its colours, a picture, a document's first page. Under both, a line says what your clips hold; with Apple Intelligence on, a sentence about them too.
Use ↑ ↓ to choose a clip and Esc to close.
Three ways to ask
- Just type — ClipBob reads what you mean: an app, a kind, a day, a Mac. images from Safari yesterday, the last 5 links, swift code, links without github, what did I copy this week, code from the last 3 days, links from this quarter. Words inside pictures and screenshots are found too.
- = to search — exactly what you type, nothing read into it: =last 5 finds those words, not your last five clips.
- ? for Apple Intelligence — ask in your own words, then press ↩. It fixes your spelling, on your Mac — and never changes what you asked: when its version would, ClipBob reads your words as you typed them.
The symbol at the start of the bar shows which you're using.
Scopes
Press Tab to step through the scopes — Text, Commands, Code, Images, Files & links, Pinned — and ⇧Tab to go back. The ⇥ at the end of the bar is the reminder. Commands and Code come with the Developer Edition.
Pasting
| Key | What it pastes |
|---|---|
| ↩ | The clip as it was copied |
| ⌥↩ | The alternative — plain text, just the commands, a picture as TIFF, files as paths |
| ⌘↩ | The clip with its personal details masked — card numbers, IBANs; keys too, with the Developer Edition |
| ⌥⌘↩ | The alternative, masked the same way |
| ⌘1 – ⌘9 | That row |
A file pastes as the file itself until ClipBob restarts, then as its path.
Keeping and removing
| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
| ⌘P | Pin — pinned clips are kept whatever the history limit; ⌘P again unpins |
| ⌘L | Hide — out of the list on every Mac |
| ⇧⌘. | Show your hidden clips (Touch ID or your password first), or go back |
| ⌘⌫ | Delete — press twice; gone from every Mac |
| ⇧⌘P | Pause or resume saving copies |
Commands
Type ? and a command's name, then ↩:
- ?help — the manual, inside ClipBob (or ? alone, then ↩)
- ?hidden — your hidden clips
- ?secrets — the clips holding a key or a card, masked
- ?local — the clips that stay on this Mac
- ?settings — Settings
- ?pause and ?resume — stop saving copies for a while, or start again
- ?quit — quit ClipBob
Anything else after ? is a question for Apple Intelligence.
Secrets and personal details
ClipBob never saves what a password manager marks as a password, or copies that apps mark as temporary. It recognises card numbers, IBANs and US Social Security numbers, and masks them in the list and the preview. Pasting one as it is asks for Touch ID or your password first; ⌘↩ pastes it masked without asking. With the Developer Edition, API keys, tokens and private keys are masked everywhere too, and you can add your own patterns. Settings → Privacy has the switches, including one that keeps such clips off iCloud.
Screenshots
Choose the folders your screenshots are saved to in Settings → Capture, and new screenshots join your history — named, and searchable by the words in them.
On all your Macs
Turn on Sync across your Macs in Settings → General, on each Mac signed into the same Apple Account. Clips copied on one Mac show on the others, marked with the Mac they came from. Settings → iCloud shows the room they take, lists your Macs, and can remove one along with its clips. File clips and very large items stay on the Mac they were copied on.
Each Mac keeps its own settings, in your iCloud: a new Mac starts with those of the Mac you changed last, and a Mac you reinstall gets its own back. The storage limit and the sync limit, in Settings → iCloud, apply to all your Macs.
The menu bar
ClipBob's flower lives in the menu bar (or the Dock, or both — Settings → Appearance). Its centre fills each time a copy is saved. Bars in a dimmed flower mean saving is paused; press ⇧⌘P to start again.
Settings
Press ⌘, with the panel open, or choose Settings from the flower's menu.
- General — start at login, sync across your Macs, your edition.
- Appearance — the panel's size, where ClipBob shows, and how it tells you it saved a copy.
- Shortcuts — every key ClipBob knows, and the one that opens it — yours to set.
- Capture — what ClipBob saves, your screenshot folders, and how big a clip may be.
- History — how long clips are kept on this Mac.
- iCloud — the room your clips take, what may sync, and your Macs.
- Privacy — what's never saved, what's masked, apps to ignore.
- Developer — the Developer Edition.
The Developer Edition
A yearly subscription that turns ClipBob into your code and command snippet manager:
- Commands and Code — two scopes for every command and every piece of code you've copied
- Syntax highlighting in 50+ languages
- ⌥↩ pastes just the commands from a terminal session — prompts and output left behind
- Keys masked everywhere, with Touch ID before one pastes as it is
- Your own patterns — mask anything a regular expression finds
Everything else — history, Ask, sync, and the protections above — is free. Subscribe in Settings → Developer.
Every key
| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
| ⌥⌘V | Open ClipBob, from anywhere (yours to change) |
| Type | Ask |
| = | Search exactly |
| ? | Ask Apple Intelligence |
| ?help, ?settings, … | Commands |
| ⇥ ⇧⇥ | Scopes |
| ↑ ↓ | Choose a clip |
| ↩ ⌥↩ ⌘↩ ⌥⌘↩ | Paste — as copied, the alternative, masked, the alternative masked |
| ⌘1 – ⌘9 | Paste that row |
| ⌘P | Pin |
| ⌘L | Hide |
| ⇧⌘. | Hidden clips |
| ⌘⌫ ⌘⌫ | Delete |
| ⇧⌘P | Pause or resume |
| ⌘, | Settings |
| Esc | Close |
Need help?
See Support, or email jagmeet@cloud-craft.ai.