Klipp: screen capture and clipboard history for Mac

Name: Klipp
Author: Carl Hagerling

06.1 The pitch

"Klipp is two tools sharing one menu bar icon: a screen capture tool, and a clipboard history that quietly keeps what you copy. Both land in the same searchable library, and that library never leaves your Mac."

06.2 What it does

Two jobs, one menu bar icon.

Most tools do one of these. Klipp does both, and because they share a library, everything you grabbed today is in the same place whether you shot it or copied it.

Half one

It captures your screen

Take a screenshot from the menu bar and pick what goes in frame: a whole display, a single window, or one app. Screenshots you take with the macOS shortcuts get picked up too, so nothing you capture ends up outside the library.

Half two

It keeps what you copy

Every piece of text and every image you copy is filed as you go, tagged with the app and the window it came from. The thing you copied an hour ago is still one search away, not gone.

06.3 Capture

Capture exactly what you mean, not the whole screen.

Klipp captures through the macOS content picker, so you choose what goes in frame before the shot is taken, and nothing you did not mean to share comes along with it.

Capture 01

A display

The whole of any screen you have connected, captured at its native resolution and ready to drag or copy the moment it lands.

Capture 02

A window

One window on its own, without the desktop behind it, the menu bar above it, or anything else stacked on top.

Capture 03

An app

Everything belonging to a single app at once, so a tool spread across several windows comes out as one coherent shot.

Capture 04

Your macOS shortcuts

The shots you already take with the built-in screenshot shortcuts are picked up from your screenshots folder and filed alongside the rest.

Whichever way it arrives, it lands in the same library as everything you copy, already tagged and already searchable, so your old habits keep working.

Planned, and not part of this release: recording a region as a GIF, and firing a burst of stills instead of one.

06.4 The library

A clipboard you can search, not just scroll.

A history is only useful if you can find things in it. Klipp reads every image the moment it lands, entirely on your Mac, and that is what turns a pile of captures and copied text into something you can actually query.

Open the panel and your history is a grid of rich thumbnails. The words inside every image are read on your Mac, so a screenshot is searchable by its contents, and Klipp picks out the colours, links and email addresses it finds. Search matches the detected text, the app a capture came from, the window it was taken in, your own tags and the filename, and you can narrow to screenshots, copied images, copied text or favourites, then filter by date, tone, light or dark, and size.

Reads every image

Text, colours, and links

The words inside each capture are recognised on your Mac, and Klipp picks out the colours, links and email addresses it finds. Every colour and link is one click to copy, the detected text copies as a block, and none of it leaves your device.

Finds anything fast

Search and smart filters

Search a screenshot by the words inside it, or by the app and the window it came from. Narrow to screenshots, copied images, copied text or favourites, filter by date, and narrow images by tone, light or dark, or by size.

Text recognition, colour sampling, and link detection all run locally on your Mac. No image or its contents is sent anywhere for analysis.

06.5 How it works

Capture to reuse in three steps.

01

Capture, or just copy

Take a screenshot from the menu bar, or copy something anywhere on your Mac. Either way Klipp files it, with no window to open and nothing to name. Passwords and content other apps mark as concealed are never captured.

02

Klipp reads it and files it

The words inside every image are recognised on your Mac, and Klipp picks out the colours, links and email addresses it finds. Each item is tagged with the app it came from, the window it was taken in, and, if you turn it on, a coarse location.

03

Find it, then reuse it

Open the panel from the menu bar and search by the words inside a screenshot, the app it came from, or your own tags. Drag any item straight into another app, or copy the original, a compressed version, or its detected text.

06.6 Features

Built around how you'd actually use it.

Six highlights, each one earning its place by removing a daily friction.

06.6.01

Capture what you mean

Take a screenshot of a whole display, a single window, or one app, chosen in the macOS content picker before the shot is taken. It lands in the library already read and filed.

06.6.02

A clipboard that remembers

The text and images you copy are filed the instant you copy them, tagged with the app and the window they came from, so what you had an hour ago is still there.

06.6.03

Reads every image

The words inside each capture are recognised on your Mac, and Klipp finds the colours, links and email addresses in it. Every one is a click to copy, and none of it leaves your device.

06.6.04

Search and filters

Narrow to screenshots, copied images, copied text or favourites, filter by source app and date, and narrow images by tone, light or dark, or by size. Add your own tags too.

06.6.05

Markup and detail previews

Open any item full size, mark it up, and copy the original or a smaller compressed version, with a slider to compare the two before you send it.

06.6.06

Menu-bar native

Lives in the menu bar, launches at login if you want it to, and watches your screenshots folder so the shots you take with the macOS shortcuts land in Klipp as well.

06.7 Privacy

A clipboard history is only safe if it stays put.

Your history is kept on your Mac in a local database encrypted with a key held in the macOS Keychain. Passwords and content other apps mark as concealed are never captured, and there is no analytics or tracking of any kind. If you want to, you can connect your own Notion database or a folder on your Mac to upload captures and drag a hosted link instead of the file, and turn on coarse city-level location tags.

Runs entirely on your Mac

Klipp is a native menu-bar app with no servers of its own. Your history stays on your device, and text recognition and image analysis run on-device.

Encrypted, Keychain-backed

Your history database is encrypted on your Mac, with the key held in the macOS Keychain, device-only. Upload tokens live in the Keychain too.

Uploads only if you ask

Cloud upload is off by default. Connect your own Notion database or a folder on your Mac and Klipp uploads only there. Location tagging is optional and coarse.

No analytics or tracking

Zero telemetry. Klipp never reads passwords or concealed clipboard content, and makes no upload you didn't set up.

Read the full privacy policy →

06.8 FAQ

Common questions.

What can Klipp capture?

Two things, which is the point of it. Your screen: a screenshot of a whole display, a single window, or one app, taken from the menu bar. And your clipboard: the text and images you copy are filed automatically as you go. Screenshots taken with the macOS shortcuts are picked up as well.

Where is my history stored?

On your Mac. Your history database is encrypted with a key held in the macOS Keychain, and the captured image files sit alongside it in Klipp's own application support folder. Nothing is uploaded to any server unless you choose to connect an upload destination yourself.

Is my data private?

Yes. The history database is encrypted at rest, passwords and content other apps mark as concealed are never read at all, text recognition and image analysis run entirely on your Mac, and there is no analytics or tracking of any kind.

How does the search and filtering work?

Because Klipp reads the text inside every image on your Mac, you can search a screenshot by its contents. Search also matches the app a capture came from, the window it was taken in, your own tags and the filename. You can narrow to screenshots, copied images, copied text or favourites, filter by date, and narrow images by tone, light or dark, or by size.

Can Klipp upload my captures somewhere?

Optionally, yes. If you connect your own Notion database or a folder on your Mac, Klipp can upload captures there and let you drag a hosted link instead of the file. It is off by default and only ever uploads where you tell it to.

What are the system requirements?

macOS 14.0 or later. Klipp lives in the menu bar and launches at login if you want it to, and it needs screen recording permission to capture your screen.

More questions? Visit the support page → · Read the privacy policy →

06.9 Other tools