What AI actions can a clipboard assistant run?

ClipHistory includes summarize, rewrite, translate, and clean. Each runs on whatever clip you select, and the result goes back to your clipboard ready to paste.

Do I need a separate AI subscription?

No. You use your own API key from Anthropic, OpenAI, DeepSeek, Google, or a custom endpoint, and pay that provider directly per token. ClipHistory itself is a one-time $19.99 purchase.

Is my clipboard history uploaded anywhere?

No. Your history stays local on your Mac. Only the single clip you choose to transform is sent to your AI provider when you trigger an action.

What macOS version do I need?

macOS 12 or later. ClipHistory is a universal binary, so it runs natively on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs.

How do I open the assistant?

Press Cmd+Shift+V to open your clipboard history, select a clip, and choose an AI action.

An AI Text Assistant in Your Mac Clipboard

Most AI writing tools want you to leave your work, open a chat window, paste your text, write a prompt, copy the answer, and paste it back. That's five context switches for a task that should take one keystroke. A better model: put the AI assistant where the text already lives — your clipboard.

This article explains how a clipboard-based AI assistant works on macOS, what it can do, and why running it on your own API key keeps things private and predictable.

The clipboard is the universal text surface

Everything you copy on a Mac passes through one shared clipboard. That makes it the ideal place to attach an assistant. Instead of building integrations for Mail, Notes, Slack, VS Code, and twenty other apps, you attach the AI to the clipboard once and it works in all of them.

The pattern is always the same:

Copy text with Cmd+C.
Open your clipboard with Cmd+Shift+V.
Run an AI action on the clip.
Paste the result with Cmd+V.

No new window, no re-typing your prompt every time.

What the assistant can actually do

ClipHistory ships four AI transforms you can run on any clip:

Summarize

Copy a long email thread, article, or set of meeting notes and get a tight summary. Useful when someone forwards you a wall of text and you need the gist before deciding how to respond.

Rewrite

Rework a sentence or paragraph — change the tone, make it clearer, tighten it up, or adjust formality. Good for turning a rough first draft into something you'd actually send.

Translate

Convert text to another language and paste it back. Because it runs on the clipboard, it works in apps that don't have their own translate feature.

Clean

Strip messy formatting, fix spacing, and normalize text that you pasted from a webpage or PDF. (See our dedicated guide on cleaning copied formatting.)

Your own API key, your own model

The assistant runs on your API key. ClipHistory supports five providers: Anthropic, OpenAI, DeepSeek, Google, or a custom endpoint. You add the key once in settings.

This design has concrete benefits:

Cost transparency. You pay your provider directly per token. There's no markup and no separate AI subscription on top of the app.
Model choice. Want a fast, inexpensive model for quick rewrites and a more capable one for nuanced work? Configure whichever your provider offers.
Privacy by default. ClipHistory has no cloud and no account. The only data leaving your Mac is the specific clip you send to your provider when you trigger an action. Your full clipboard history never goes anywhere.

Everything stays local

This is the part that separates a clipboard assistant from a web app. Your clipboard history — the last 150 unpinned clips plus any pinned ones — lives only on your Mac. There's no sign-up, no synced account, no server holding your copy-paste history.

When you run an AI action, only that single clip is sent to the provider you chose. Nothing else. If you never trigger an action, nothing ever leaves the machine.

A realistic day with a clipboard assistant

Here's how the assistant fits into ordinary work:

A teammate sends a long Slack message. You copy it, Cmd+Shift+V, summarize, and read the three-line version.
You draft a reply that's a bit blunt. Copy it, rewrite for a friendlier tone, paste it back.
A customer writes in Spanish. Copy, translate, read, respond.
You paste a quote from a PDF and it brings ugly line breaks. Clean it, and it's tidy.

Each of these is one trip to the clipboard, not a detour to a separate app.

Why this beats a chat window for short tasks

Chat assistants are great for open-ended conversation. But for the small, repetitive text tasks that fill a workday — tighten this, translate that, summarize this thread — a chat window is overkill. You don't need a conversation; you need one transform applied to the text you already have. The clipboard assistant collapses that into a single action.

Requirements

ClipHistory runs on macOS 12 or later as a universal binary, so it's native on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs. It's signed and notarized by Apple, which means it passes Gatekeeper without warnings.

Get ClipHistory for macOS

An AI text assistant doesn't need its own window. It belongs on the clipboard, where your text already is, running on your own API key with nothing stored in the cloud.

Get ClipHistory for macOS — $19.99, one-time (12-month license, no auto-renewal). Apple-signed and notarized, universal binary for Apple Silicon and Intel.