Clipboard Doctor vs Paste
Paste is the most polished clipboard manager on the Mac — and at $29.99/year it costs money, requires an Apple ID, and syncs your clipboard to iCloud. Clipboard Doctor is free, stores everything locally, and never touches the network.
Short answer: If you need clipboard history on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac at once, Paste is the only tool that does that well. If you only need Mac clipboard history and don't want to pay a subscription or send your clipboard to iCloud, Clipboard Doctor covers the same ground for free.
Feature comparison
| Feature | Clipboard Doctor | Paste |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | $29.99/year (or Setapp) |
| Account required | None | Apple ID / Setapp |
| Cloud sync | No — local only | Yes — iCloud |
| Text clipboard history | Yes | Yes |
| Image history (store screenshots) | Yes | Yes |
| Search text inside screenshots (OCR) | Yes — on-device, offline | Yes — added in v4.4 |
| Arabic OCR | Yes — bilingual AR+EN | Not specifically supported |
| Fully offline (no network) | Yes — verifiable | Requires iCloud connection |
| iOS / iPhone companion app | No | Yes |
| Tags and pinning | Yes | Yes (Pinboards) |
| Snippets / templates | Yes | Yes |
| Global hotkey | Yes (⌃⇧W) | Yes |
| macOS requirement | macOS 13+ | macOS 13+ |
Where Paste wins
Paste's headline feature is cross-device sync: copy on your Mac, paste on your iPhone, and vice versa. If that workflow matters to you, Paste is the only tool that handles it cleanly. It also has a more refined visual design with board-style organisation (Pinboards) and a long track record on the Mac App Store since 2016.
Where Clipboard Doctor wins
The clearest difference is cost and privacy. Clipboard Doctor is free, has no subscription, and makes zero outbound network connections — you can verify this with Little Snitch. Your clipboard history never leaves your Mac.
On OCR, both apps can search text inside screenshots. Clipboard Doctor's OCR is explicitly bilingual: Arabic and English run simultaneously, with full right-to-left support. If you work in Arabic — or in mixed Arabic–English documents — Clipboard Doctor is designed for that case specifically. Paste's text recognition uses Apple's Vision framework but bilingual Arabic support is not a marketed capability.
Clipboard Doctor also works on Intel Macs (any Mac running macOS 13+). There's no account to sign into, no subscription to manage, and no iCloud quota to monitor.
Download Clipboard Doctor — freemacOS 13+ · 2-minute install guide
Questions
Is it safe to keep clipboard history locally instead of in iCloud?
Yes — and for many users it's safer. iCloud sync means your clipboard history travels to Apple's servers and to every signed-in device. Local-only storage means a data breach on any other device can't reach your clipboard history. Clipboard Doctor stores history in a sandboxed, encrypted container on your Mac only.
Can Clipboard Doctor's OCR search Arabic text inside screenshots?
Yes. Clipboard Doctor runs Apple's Vision OCR engine on every screenshot with both Arabic and English enabled simultaneously. If a screenshot contains mixed Arabic–English text — a common pattern in Gulf region apps, documents, and websites — both languages are indexed and searchable.
Does Clipboard Doctor work without an internet connection?
Entirely. All OCR processing happens on-device using Apple's Neural Engine (Apple Silicon) or Vision CPU path (Intel). No network request is made during normal use. You can confirm this with Little Snitch or any network monitor.
What if I need cross-device clipboard sync in the future?
Clipboard Doctor is Mac-only and has no cross-device sync — if that's a core requirement, Paste is the better fit. Clipboard Doctor focuses on doing the local Mac case extremely well: unlimited history, OCR on every screenshot, no subscription.
Is $29.99/year expensive for a clipboard manager?
That depends on how much you use it. For heavy users who need cross-device sync, Paste's price is reasonable. For users who only need Mac clipboard history with OCR, Clipboard Doctor covers that at no cost. It's worth trying the free option first.
Also see: vs Maccy · offline & private · Arabic clipboard manager · search text in screenshots