Kept vs Maccy
Maccy is a small, fast, open-source clipboard manager that lives in the menu bar. It is the app most people try first, and for good reason. Kept starts from the same idea and spends its effort on what happens after you press the shortcut.
One of the Kept, compared pages.
| Kept | Maccy | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free, open source |
| Source | Private | Public, MIT |
| Open with | ⇧⌘V for the card, ⌥⇧⌘V for the panel, or click the menu bar icon | ⇧⌘C, or click the menu bar icon |
| Where it opens | At your text cursor; the panel under the menu bar icon | A popup list near the menu bar or the pointer |
| Return | Return pastes into the app you were in | Copies by default; ⌥Return pastes, or turn on "Paste automatically" |
| Plain text | ⌥Return; plain by default into Slack, terminals and browsers | ⌥⇧Return |
| Search | Full text, as you type, in the card and the panel | Type to filter the list |
| What it keeps | Text, links, code, colours, files, images and screenshots | Text, images, files |
| Preview | The full item, exactly as it will paste, above the list | One line per item |
| Sync | None, on purpose | None |
| Network | No networking code; checked on every build | No network use for history |
| Terminal | The kept command lists, searches and copies history | None |
Keep Maccy if
- You want the source open and auditable.
- A one-line list is all you ever needed.
- You like a project with a public issue tracker and many contributors.
Switch to Kept if
- You want the item shown in full before it pastes, not a truncated line.
- You paste into Slack, Jira or a terminal and are tired of stray fonts: Kept pastes plain there by default.
- You want the card at your cursor rather than at the menu bar.
- You work in the terminal and want your history there too.
Switching
In Kept's welcome window, or in Settings › General, choose "Maccy" under "Use the shortcut from". Kept then opens with the shortcut your hands already know. Your Maccy history stays in Maccy; Kept starts collecting from the moment it runs. Download Kept, free, for macOS 14 or later.
Facts as of October 2026, from Maccy's own documentation. Something wrong or out of date? Say so and it gets fixed.