Iris

Clipboard history for macOS. Press ⌘⇧V, arrow to what you copied, press Return — it pastes into the app you were already in.

Download Iris

v0.1.0 · macOS 15 or later · Apple silicon · 776 KB · free while in development

This is an early build

Read this before installing. Iris is being built in the open and this build exists so it can be tried and reviewed, not because it is finished. It keeps your clipboard history on your Mac and pastes it back. That is all it does today.

What works

It remembers what you copy. Text and links, captured about five times a second, so a clip is there the instant you go looking for it.
⌘⇧V opens your history over whatever you are working in.
Arrows choose, Return pastes into the app you came from. ⌘1 through ⌘9 paste by position.
It skips your passwords. Anything a password manager marks concealed, or an app marks transient, is never stored.
It survives a restart. Your history is still there tomorrow.
Nothing leaves your Mac. There is no account, no sync, and no network call of any kind in this build.

What is not there yet

Search. Today the panel shows your history newest-first and nothing more.
Images and files. Only text and links are captured.
Pinboards, previews, transforms, and cross-device sync.
Automatic updates. New builds land on this page.

Installing

Open the downloaded Iris.dmg and drag Iris into Applications.
This build carries an ad-hoc signature rather than a Developer ID one, so macOS will refuse to open it until you clear the quarantine flag. In Terminal:
```
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Iris.app
```
Then open Iris normally. A properly signed and notarized build replaces this one shortly; it will not need this step.
Iris runs in the menu bar with no Dock icon. Copy something, then press ⌘⇧V.
The first time you press Return to paste, macOS asks for Accessibility access. Iris needs it to press ⌘V in the other app for you — that is the only thing it uses the permission for. Decline it and Iris still works: it puts the clip on your clipboard and tells you to paste it yourself.

Why it needs Accessibility

A clipboard manager has to put text into an app it does not own. There is exactly one supported way to do that on macOS: ask the system to deliver a ⌘V to whatever is frontmost. That API is gated behind Accessibility, and every clipboard manager that pastes for you uses it.

Iris is deliberately not sandboxed, for the same reason. A sandboxed app cannot send that keystroke at all. The trade is stated plainly rather than buried: Iris asks for a real permission, and in return it never sends your clipboard anywhere.

Uninstalling

Quit Iris from the menu bar, drag it to the Trash, and remove its history:

rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/Iris