Correct Grammar in Your Clipboard on Mac

Correct Grammar in Your Clipboard on Mac

Grammar mistakes hide in the gaps between apps. You write in a Slack box, a CRM field, a terminal commit message, a form that has no spell-check at all. Copying that text into a grammar tool, fixing it, and pasting it back is three steps too many for a one-line message.

ClipHistory moves the correction step onto your clipboard, so any app inherits it. Copy, run the transform, paste. The app that had no spell-check now effectively does.

Grammar correction as a clipboard transform

ClipHistory ships with AI transforms that act on whatever you copied. The "rewrite" and "clean" transforms cover most grammar work: rewrite fixes phrasing and grammar while keeping your meaning, and clean strips the formatting noise that often comes with pasted text.

Because the transform replaces the clipboard contents, the corrected text is immediately ready to paste. You never leave the field you were typing in.

The workflow

1. Copy the text you want corrected with Cmd+C.
2. Press Cmd+Shift+V to open ClipHistory.
3. Select the clip and run the rewrite transform.
4. Paste the corrected version with Cmd+V.

The whole loop takes a couple of seconds, which is the point. A correction that takes longer than typing the fix yourself does not get used.

Where this beats built-in spell-check

macOS spell-check catches misspelled words but not grammar: subject-verb agreement, tense shifts, dangling clauses, the wrong "its". And plenty of input fields disable it entirely. An AI rewrite reads the whole sentence and fixes the structure, not just the red-underlined words.

Common places it helps:

• Commit messages and code comments, where there is no spell-check at all.
• Web forms and CRMs, where the field is a plain text box.
• Quick replies in a second language, where you want a sanity check before sending.
• Long-form drafts, where the same typo pattern repeats and you want one consistent pass.

Your key, your provider, your machine

Grammar correction runs through the AI provider you choose: Anthropic, OpenAI, DeepSeek, Google, or a custom endpoint. You add your own API key in settings, and the text you transform goes straight to that provider. ClipHistory has no account, no login, and no cloud sync. Your clipboard history, including the 150 most recent unpinned clips and any pinned ones, stays local on your Mac.

That separation matters for grammar specifically, because the text you correct is often sensitive: internal messages, draft contracts, customer replies. The only thing that leaves your machine is the snippet you explicitly send for correction.

What "rewrite for grammar" actually changes

It helps to know what an AI rewrite touches so you can trust it. A grammar-focused rewrite fixes agreement (subject and verb, pronoun and antecedent), tense consistency, punctuation around clauses, and word-choice errors like "affect" versus "effect". It keeps your meaning and roughly your length. It is not a tone change and not a summary, so the corrected text still sounds like you, just without the mistakes.

If you want more than grammar, say a more formal register, add a tone instruction to the rewrite. But for a pure correction pass, the default rewrite keeps its hands off your voice.

Reviewing before you paste

AI rewrites are good, not infallible. Two habits keep you safe. First, on anything that matters, glance at the corrected version before pasting, especially for names, numbers, and technical terms the model might "helpfully" alter. Second, when correcting text in a second language, treat the output as a strong draft and confirm idioms read naturally. The point of the clipboard workflow is speed, but a two-second review is still faster than the old browser round trip.

Build a snippet library while you're at it

If you keep correcting the same boilerplate, save the polished version as a snippet. Snippets are unlimited and survive the rolling 150-clip history, so your standard signoff, apology line, or status update is one paste away and already grammatically clean.

Pinned clips work the same way: pin a corrected paragraph you'll reuse this week and it won't get pushed out of history. For a batch of fields to fix, the paste stack lets you queue several corrected clips and paste them in order without re-copying each one.

Clean first, then rewrite

Text copied from PDFs and web pages often arrives with broken line breaks and stray characters that confuse grammar correction. A useful two-step habit:

1. Run clean to strip the formatting noise.
2. Run rewrite to fix the grammar.

The cleaned input gives the AI a clearer sentence to work with, so the correction is tighter.

Install and licensing

ClipHistory is a universal binary, native on both Apple Silicon and Intel, and needs macOS 12 or later. It is signed and notarized by Apple, so it installs without Gatekeeper warnings. Add your API key once and the rewrite transform is available everywhere through the global Cmd+Shift+V shortcut.

It is a one-time $19.99 purchase: a 12-month license, no subscription, no auto-renewal.

Get ClipHistory for macOS

Give every app on your Mac grammar correction it never had. Copy, rewrite, paste, all local with your own AI key. Get ClipHistory for macOS ($19.99).