HotCopy
A clipboard manager for macOS that captures everything you copy. Not just the text, but every representation an app puts on the pasteboard. Click any past item and your next ⌘V pastes it back byte for byte, so pasting into the original app works exactly like the original copy. It comes in two apps: HotCopy on the Mac App Store, and HotCopyist, the edition for music copyists, available on this page.
HotCopy or HotCopyist?
Get HotCopy from the Mac App Store. That's the right answer for just about everyone. The one exception is Finale — no longer supported by MakeMusic, but still on a lot of copyists' desks. If you copy music in Finale, get HotCopyist. It's the same app plus a bridge to Finale's internal clipboard, which App Store apps aren't allowed to touch because of sandboxing rules.
HotCopy Mac App Store
The clipboard manager. Everything you copy, kept in full and ready to paste anywhere.
- ✓ Captures text, images, files, and app-private formats
- ✓ 5 global hot slots, pins, search, and the payload inspector
- ✓ Updates automatically through the App Store
- ✓ Runs in the App Sandbox
- – Does not include the Finale bridge
HotCopyist For Music Copyists
The copyist's edition. Everything in HotCopy, plus a bridge to Finale's music clipboard.
- ✓ Everything in HotCopy
- ✓ Captures Finale music clips and pastes them back, exactly as copied
- ✓ Banks passages in hot slots for the session
- ✓ Signed and notarized by Apple
- – Updates by re-downloading from this page
- – What is “…ist”?
Get the Apps
Both are free. No sign-up, no account.
Want a heads-up when HotCopy lands on the App Store? Leave your email and you'll get one note when it's live. That's the only thing it's used for.
What They Do
- Full-fidelity capture — stores every pasteboard representation: plain text, RTF, HTML, images, file URLs, and app-private binary payloads
- Always-on-top panel — floats above every app on every Space and never steals focus from what you're working in
- 5 Hot Slots — park anything in an always-ready slot and fire it from any app with ⌃⌘1–⌃⌘5; slots survive restarts
- Pins & search — keep favorites above the fray and search history by content, source app, or type
- Click → ⌘V — click an item to arm it; your next paste uses it. ⌘-click pastes it immediately
- Payload Inspector — see every type identifier on a clipboard item, decoded as text, XML, or image, with a hex view for the rest
- Menu bar resident — no Dock icon, no clutter
- Private by design — history lives on your Mac; neither app has any network code
Keys & Clicks
| Toggle the panel from anywhere | ⌃⌘V |
| Arm an item, then paste it wherever you are | click, then ⌘V |
| Paste an item immediately into the frontmost app | ⌘-click |
| Fire hot slot 1–5 from any app | ⌃⌘1 … ⌃⌘5 |
| Save an item to a hot slot | right-click → Save to Hot Slot |
| Plain-text copy, pin, inspect, or delete | right-click |
| Hide the panel | Esc |
Made for Copyists
Copy a measure in Finale and it never reaches the system clipboard. Finale keeps music in a private format that clipboard managers can't see. HotCopyist can. It captures each passage as you copy it, holds as many as you need in history and hot slots, and puts any of them back so your next paste in Finale is the one you chose, exactly as copied. The Payload Inspector also shows what any app — Finale, Sketch, Logic, Keynote — really places on the clipboard when you copy.
Support
Questions about HotCopy or HotCopyist? Found a bug, or have a feature request? Every message gets read.
Email: rblihovde@gmail.com
Contact form: ryanblihovde.com/contact
Requirements: macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later, on Apple Silicon. Permissions: none are required for the core features. The optional paste immediately gesture asks for Accessibility access the first time you use it, and everything else keeps working if you decline. Your history stays on your Mac — there are no accounts, no sync, and no network code in either app.
Privacy Policy
This policy covers HotCopy (Mac App Store) and HotCopyist (downloaded from this page). Both keep your clipboard entirely on your own machine.
What the apps access. To do their job, they read the contents of your macOS clipboard (pasteboard) so they can build your searchable history and let you paste past items back. This includes text, images, files, and the app-private formats other managers discard.
Where it's stored. Your clipboard history and hot slots are saved only on
your Mac, in the app's local storage (~/Library/Application Support/HotCopy/,
or the app's sandbox container for the App Store edition). Nothing is uploaded.
What the apps do not do. They collect no personal data, contain no analytics or tracking, include no advertising, and have no network code at all. Your clipboard contents are never transmitted, sold, or shared with anyone. There are no accounts and no sign-in.
Deleting your data. You are always in control: clear individual items or your whole history from within the app at any time, or remove all stored data by deleting the app's storage folder (or simply uninstalling).
Questions? Email rblihovde@gmail.com.
FAQ
What do the apps cost?
Nothing. Both are free, with no account and no sign-up.
Does my clipboard history leave my Mac?
No. There's no network code in either app. History is stored locally and you can clear it any time.
Why isn't the Finale bridge in the App Store version?
App Store apps run in Apple's sandbox, which blocks the access the bridge needs. HotCopyist ships outside the store so it can talk to Finale's internal clipboard.