Hi,
I’d like to suggest a small improvement regarding the Paste functionality in PopClip.
Currently, when using the Paste action, only the most recent clipboard item is inserted. It would be extremely useful if PopClip could instead offer a menu of the last few clipboard items (e.g. last 5 items — ideally configurable in preferences).
This could work in a way that when the user hovers over the Paste icon, a small submenu appears (see attached screenshot for inspiration), allowing the user to select a specific recent clipboard item. Alternatively, clicking the Paste icon could still paste the latest item as it does now, but hovering would reveal the extra options.
I’m not sure if this is technically feasible, but I believe it would be a very practical and time-saving addition for many users.
What you’re asking is to combine clipboard manager functionality into PopClip. I’ve got a feeling that would be a huge challenge. My understanding about the clipboard has always been that it doesn’t save its own history, just the last copied item; clipboard managers created in order to save and then access that history. Of course, I could be wrong about that.
I use an app called Clipboard History, which does exactly what you ask, except that you invoke it with a keyboard shortcut. I’ve got mine configured to save the last 100 copied items. Along with PopClip, it’s one of my most used utilities.
You’re right — macOS only stores the latest clipboard item, but it’s actually possible to work around this using a free clipboard manager like Maccy. Since Maccy supports AppleScript, a PopClip extension could query its clipboard history and let you pick from recent items. It wouldn’t be native history support in PopClip, but it’s a doable integration for power users with Maccy (or similar) running in the background.
It’s not out of the question, but obviously a fairly major bit of work to replicate the functionality of a clipboard manager into PopClip.
Fun fact, this used to exist as a “hidden feature” in very old versions of PopClip (like 10 years ago), as a very limited feature set. But the code doesn’t exist now.
Interesting suggestion of integrating with Maccy or possible other clipboard managers.
