Aloft help.

Aloft remembers what you copy privately on this Mac, then brings it back at your cursor.

1. Copy text, an image, or a file as usual.
2. Summon Aloft with Cmd+Shift+V (the default shortcut).
3. Select the clip you want. Type to search or use the arrow keys.
4. Paste with Return. Double-clicking a clip does the same thing.

Hold Option while pressing Return to copy without automatic paste. For text, Option+Shift+Return pastes as plain text. If you turned off Auto-paste on Enter in Settings ▸ Keyboard, Return copies instead; press Cmd+V in the destination app.

First launch: Accessibility permission

The first time you run Aloft, macOS asks you to grant Accessibility access in System Settings ▸ Privacy & Security ▸ Accessibility.

Aloft needs this for two things:

• Anchoring the overlay to your text cursor — so the panel appears exactly where you're typing rather than in a fixed corner.
• Auto-paste — synthesizing the paste keystroke into the app you're working in.

If you skip the permission, Aloft still works: the overlay opens near the mouse pointer. Selecting a clip can still copy it, but Aloft cannot send the paste keystroke for you; press Cmd+V in the destination app. Grant the permission any time to enable caret anchoring and automatic paste.

The global hotkey

Cmd+Shift+V is the default global shortcut. You can change it in Settings ▸ Keyboard — record any combination that includes at least one of Command, Option, or Control.

Aloft lives in the background

Aloft has no Dock icon — it's an accessory app that stays out of your way until you summon it. Open Settings from the gear button in the overlay's footer, or the standard Cmd+, while the overlay is focused.

Tip: Press Space on any selected item to open a full Quick Look preview without leaving the overlay.

Aloft is a clipboard manager that comes to your cursor instead of making you visit a menu. This tour covers the useful controls beyond the first copy → summon → paste loop.

Search and preview without leaving the cursor

Press your summon shortcut (default Cmd+Shift+V) to open Aloft. Once it's open:

• Type to search your whole history — including the app a clip came from and when it was copied.
• Option+4 – Option+8 filter by type; Option+1 – Option+3 switch History, Saved, and Lists.
• Cmd+1 – Cmd+9 immediately paste one of the first nine clips.
• Switch surfaces — History, Saved, and Lists — to narrow where you're looking.
• Press Space for a full Quick Look preview without leaving the overlay.

Prefer a different key? Change it in Settings ▸ Keyboard — any combination with at least one of Command, Option, or Control. See Search, Filters & Surfaces for the full picture.

Right-click for item actions

This is the one most people miss. Right-click any clip in the overlay to reach actions that have no visible button:

• Transform & Copy — change case, trim, and other one-shot text transforms.
• Save to a group, tag it, or pin it so cleanup never removes it.
• Clipboard Rules — automatic actions (including blocking) applied to what you copy.

None of this appears until you right-click, so it's worth trying once on a clip right now. Full details in Transforms, Rules & Export and Saving, Groups & Tags.

Choose how a clip leaves Aloft

How you confirm a clip decides what happens to it:

• Return — paste the selected clip into the app you came from (when Auto-paste is on).
• Option+Return — copy without automatic paste.
• Option+Shift+Return — paste text without its rich formatting.
• Double-click — paste the clip, just like Return.
• Password and secure fields are refused by default, so Aloft won't auto-paste into them.

Prefer a single click to paste? Turn on Single-click a row to paste in Settings ▸ Paste. You can change Auto-paste in Settings ▸ Keyboard.

Permission and privacy

Accessibility permission lets Aloft anchor at the caret and send the paste keystroke. Without it, the overlay opens near the mouse pointer and you press Cmd+V yourself after copying a clip. Password and secure fields are refused by default. See Privacy & Security for capture exclusions and Privacy Mode.

Where to go next

• The Clipboard Overlay — a full tour of the panel: header, the count readout, the ⋯ menu, resizing.
• Saving, Groups & Tags — keep the clips that matter; saved items are never cleaned up.
• Snippets & Placeholders — reusable text with fill-in-the-blank fields.
• Keyboard Shortcuts — every shortcut in one place.

You can re-open the Welcome window any time from the overlay's ⋯ menu, the Help menu, or Settings ▸ About.

The overlay is the floating panel you summon with Cmd+Shift+V. It has three regions: a header (search and surfaces), the list of clips, and a footer (counts and actions).

Where it appears

The overlay anchors to your text cursor. By default it opens below the caret and automatically flips above when there isn't room below — and when it flips above, the list reverses so your newest clips sit closest to the caret.

You can change this in Settings ▸ Overlay ▸ Layout ▸ Position: Auto (default), Below caret, or Above caret. You can also drag the panel by its background to nudge it off the anchor for the current session.

Header — surfaces and search

Three surface pills switch which collection you're browsing:

• History — your live, time-ordered stream of everything you've copied.
• Saved ▾ — items you've kept, plus any named groups. Click the chevron to pick a group.
• Lists ▾ — Smart Lists, including the built-in Current App list that shows only clips from the app you're in.

Below the pills is the search field and a row of type filter pills (All / Text / Links / Images / Files). See Search, Filters & Surfaces for the full story.

The list

• Arrow keys move the selection; the selected row is highlighted.
• Return pastes the selected item; Option+Return copies it without pasting.
• Double-click pastes an item, just like Return.
• Rows show a type icon, a preview (up to 3 lines), link previews for URLs, image thumbnails, and metadata (type · date · size). Any tags on an item appear as chips you can click to filter.

Footer — counts and actions

On the left, a count readout shows how many clips you've added today and how many the surface holds. Hover it for a detailed breakdown — today's count, totals per type, and on-disk size.

On the right are quick actions:

• Keep Open (pin) — keep the overlay visible after a paste (Control+Option+K by default). See below.
• Sort — toggle between newest-first and most-recently-used.
• Snippets, Privacy Mode, and Settings.
• ⋯ (more) — Paste Queue, Settings, Export ▸ (JSON / CSV / Markdown / HTML / TXT), Analytics, Clear History, Restart, and Quit.

Keep Open (pin) mode

Normally the overlay closes after you paste or click away. Turn on Keep Open — the pin button, Control+Option+K by default, or Settings ▸ Overlay ▸ Behavior — and it stays visible through pastes and clicks so you can grab several clips in a row. Esc or the summon hotkey always close it.

Resizing and chrome

• Drag the left or right edge to widen the panel. (Height is fixed at the launch size for now.)
• Panel layout in Settings ▸ Overlay ▸ Layout switches among Full, Compact, and one-line List rows.
• Hide any part of the chrome in Settings ▸ Overlay ▸ Visible controls, or toggle it all at once with Cmd+/ (or Option+Cmd+T by default).

Aloft gives you three ways to narrow down a long history: a search field, type filters, and surfaces. They stack, so you can combine all three.

Search

Press / (or Cmd+F) to focus the search field, then type. Search is instant and case-insensitive, matching across the item's content, its type, the source app, your notes, and its tags. It even understands dates — try "today" or "last week".

Tab toggles focus between the search field and the list. Esc clears search focus; press it again to close the overlay.

Tag search with #

A word that starts with # is a strict tag filter. Everything else is free text, and they combine:

Clearing the field (Esc or delete) clears the tag filter too — there's no separate "clear filter" button.

Autocomplete: typing # opens a list of your existing tags right under the search field. A bare # lists them all; #rec narrows. Use Up/Down to move, Return or Tab to accept, Esc to dismiss the suggestions (your text stays). Picking from the list keeps your tags consistent — no accidental typo-forks.

Tip: Click any tag chip on a row to add its #tag to your search (and reveal the search bar). Click it again to remove it.

Type filters

The filter pills limit the list to one kind of content. Each has an Option-number shortcut:

Filters apply within whatever surface you're on. By default the filter resets to All each time you summon the overlay; turn on Settings ▸ Overlay ▸ Behavior ▸ Remember last filter to keep it.

Surfaces

Surfaces decide which collection the list draws from:

• History (Option+1) — your live stream of recent clips. When automatic cleanup is on (Settings ▸ General ▸ History Cleanup), unsaved clips older than your chosen window are removed automatically.
• Saved (Option+2) — items you've explicitly kept, plus any named groups. These never expire. Click the Saved ▾ chevron to pick a specific group.
• Lists (Option+3) — Smart Lists, including the built-in Current App list that follows whichever app is frontmost.

Cmd+] and Cmd+[ cycle through the surfaces. By default the overlay returns to History each time you summon it; you can opt in to remembering the last surface (and the last group/list) per-surface in Settings ▸ Overlay ▸ Behavior.

Aloft uses the same Quick Look you know from Finder. Select any clip in the overlay and press Space (or Cmd+Y) to open a full preview — no need to paste it somewhere just to see what it is.

What you can preview

• Text and code — the full content, untruncated, beyond the 3-line row preview.
• Images — full-size, including image clips stored in your history.
• Links — a rich preview of the page (title, icon, description) via the system's link preview.
• Files — the native Finder Quick Look, with thumbnails and metadata.

Navigating

• Up / Down arrows step through your clips without closing the preview — the overlay's selection follows along.
• Esc closes Quick Look and returns you to the overlay, with the last-previewed item still selected.

Quick Look is a peek, not a detour: when you close it, you're right back in the overlay where you left off, ready to paste.

Tip: Space only opens Quick Look when the search field is empty. If you're mid-search, press Space to type a literal space instead.

Your History is a live stream — old clips fall off as new ones arrive. To keep something permanently, save it. To organize what you've saved, use groups and tags.

Saving an item

Right-click any clip and choose Save (or press Cmd+S). Saved items:

• Move into the Saved surface and never expire — history cleanup never touches them.
• Can be removed again with Remove (or Cmd+S to toggle).

Saved items are sorted most-used first — Aloft scores them by how often and how recently you paste them, so your go-to clips rise to the top.

Named groups

Beyond the default Saved collection, you can create named groups — "Work", "Snippets", "Addresses", whatever fits.

• Create a group from a clip's Add to Group ▸ New Group… menu, or from the Manage Groups sheet.
• Each group gets an icon (choose from a dozen SF Symbols) and a color (nine options).
• Add to a group from any clip's right-click Add to Group ▸ submenu. An item can live in more than one group.
• Browse a group by clicking the Saved ▾ chevron in the overlay header.

Deleting a group

When you delete a named group, Aloft asks what to do with its members:

• Keep items (move to Saved) — the clips survive in your Saved collection. No data is lost.
• Delete items — the clips are removed from history too (this is undoable).

The default Saved group can't be renamed or deleted — it's always there as the home base.

Tags

Tags are a flexible, cross-cutting way to label clips — an item can carry as many as you like, independent of which group it's in.

Adding tags

Right-click a clip and open Add Tag ▸:

• New Tag… opens a small field with live autocomplete from tags you've used before.
• Below it, your most-used existing tags appear — click one to assign it instantly.

Tags can't contain spaces — Aloft normalizes them as you type (meeting notes becomes meeting-notes) so every tag is always typeable as #tag. Aloft also reuses an existing tag's spelling if you type a different case, so "receipt" and "Receipt" don't split into two.

Removing tags

Right-click a tagged clip and use Remove Tag ▸ to drop any tag.

Finding tagged clips

Type #tagname in the search field, or click a tag chip on any row. See Search, Filters & Surfaces for the full tag-search syntax.

Snippets are reusable blocks of text you write once and paste often — email signatures, canned replies, boilerplate, addresses. Unlike clipboard history, snippets don't expire and you author them deliberately.

While the clipboard overlay is open, press Control+Option+S (the default Snippets shortcut), or click the Snippets button immediately left of the Privacy Mode eye in the footer. Hover over the button to see its name and current shortcut. You can change the shortcut in Settings ▸ Keyboard ▸ Actions; it also works when the footer is hidden.

Creating a snippet

Click New Snippet and fill in:

• Name — what you'll search for.
• Content — the text to paste.
• Category — a simple grouping (defaults to "General").
• Tags — for searching, just like clip tags.

Mark a snippet as a favorite (from its context menu) to keep it near the top. Search the list by name, content, or tag.

Placeholders

A snippet can contain {{placeholders}} — fill-in-the-blank fields. For example:

Hi {{name}},

Thanks for reaching out about {{topic}}. I'll get back to you by {{date}}.

When you use a snippet that contains placeholders, Aloft pops up a small dialog asking you to fill each one in, then pastes the completed text. Snippets without placeholders paste immediately.

Use placeholders for anything that changes each time — a recipient's name, an order number, a date — while keeping the rest of the wording consistent.

The Paste Queue lets you line up several clips and paste them one at a time, in order — perfect for filling out a form, transferring a list field by field, or feeding lines into a chat.

Building a queue

• Select one or more clips, right-click, and choose Add to Queue (or press Option+Q).
• Or take a single multi-line clip and choose Split into Queue… — Aloft breaks it into separate entries by a delimiter (newline, comma, tab, or a custom one you pick).

A small Paste Queue window appears, showing your position (e.g. "2 / 5") and a preview of what's next.

Pasting from the queue

The queue window has four controls:

• Next (▶) — paste the next entry into the frontmost app and advance.
• Send after each (⏎) — when on, Aloft presses Return after each paste. Handy for chat apps or moving between form fields.
• Reverse — flip the order (last-added first).
• Stop — clear the queue and close the window.

You stay in control of timing: click Next when you're ready for each item, or turn on Send after each to auto-submit between pastes.

Defaults

Set the queue's default split delimiter, default Send after each, and default Reverse order in Settings ▸ Paste.

Note: The queue lives in memory for the current session — it isn't saved when you quit Aloft. If an item in the queue was deleted or its file moved, Aloft skips it and tells you.

Aloft can reshape text on its way out, apply automatic rules to everything you copy, and move your whole history in and out as files.

Transform & Copy

Right-click any text clip and open Transform & Copy ▸ to copy a reshaped version without changing the original:

• UPPERCASE · lowercase · Title Case
• camelCase · snake_case · kebab-case

Format & Paste (presets)

A Format Preset is a named pipeline of one or more text transforms you apply in a single step. Right-click a text clip and choose Format & Paste ▸ to run a preset — it transforms and pastes at once. Hold Option to copy the result without pasting.

Build your own presets in Settings ▸ Privacy & Rules ▸ Format Presets by stacking steps — Plain Text, Trim, Collapse Whitespace, Remove Line Breaks, the case transforms, and more. Aloft ships with a handful of defaults to start from.

Clipboard Rules

Rules run automatically as you copy, matching content by a regular expression. Add them in Settings ▸ Privacy & Rules ▸ Clipboard Rules with a name, a regex pattern, and an action:

• Reshape the text — UPPERCASE, lowercase, Title Case, Remove Spaces, Remove Line Breaks, Trim Whitespace.
• Block — match content you never want saved (for example, anything matching an internal token pattern). Blocked content is dropped before it reaches your history.

Rules are checked in order on every capture; the first matching Block rule stops the item from being saved at all.

Import & Export

Export your history from the overlay's ⋯ ▸ Export ▸ menu in five formats:

Import from Settings ▸ General ▸ Data & maintenance… ▸ Import History — merge items from an Aloft JSON export. CSV, Markdown, HTML and TXT are export-only formats.

JSON is not a complete library backup: rich-text, HTML and vector representations are not included, and file clips reference the original files rather than embedding them. The overlay exports clips only, without snippets, groups or statistics. Settings, rules and smart lists are not transferred. Automatic sync is not currently available.

The Analytics dashboard shows how you actually use your clipboard. Open it from the overlay's ⋯ ▸ Analytics menu.

Time periods

Pick the window at the top:

• Today
• Week (the last 7 days)
• Month
• All Time

Stat cards

A row of summary cards for the selected period:

• Total Clips — how much you copied.
• Most Used Type — text, links, images, and so on.
• Average Length — the typical size of a clip.
• Searches and Paste Actions — how much you searched and pasted.
• Peak Hour — the hour of day you copy most.

Charts

• Type Distribution — a breakdown of your clips by content type, with percentages.
• Activity (Last 7 Days) — a bar per day.
• Hourly Distribution — a 24-hour grid showing when you're most active.

Resetting

To start the counters fresh, use Reset Statistics in Settings ▸ General ▸ Data & maintenance…. Daily, weekly, and monthly tallies also roll over automatically at each period boundary.

All of this is computed and stored only on your Mac — Aloft never sends usage data anywhere.

Open Settings with the gear button in the overlay footer, or Cmd+, while the overlay is focused. The window has six panes. Use the search field to jump directly to a control; optional groups open automatically when a result points inside them.

General

• History Cleanup — turn Automatically clean up old history on to have History remove unsaved clips older than your chosen window (1 day to 1 year; 1 month by default); leave it off to keep everything. Saved items are never touched.
• Show notifications, Launch at login, and Allow quit (when off, Cmd+Q is blocked — use Restart).
• Data & maintenance… — import history, clear the link-preview cache, and reset analytics counters.
• Demo & screenshots… — demo scenarios and capture appearance. When Demo Mode is active, its status and Stop control remain visible.

Overlay

• Theme — six designs: System, Caret Lift (the house look), Slate, Linen, Vapor (frosted glass), and Sage.
• Appearance — System / Light / Dark.
• Panel layout, Position, and Height control density and placement.
• Visible controls — use Minimal panel for one simple choice, or expand Customize visible controls… for tabs, filters, toolbar, search, and restore-on-reopen.
• Behavior — remember filters/surfaces, Keep Open, row numbers, badge style, and single-tap surface behavior.

Keyboard

• The global hotkey recorder (default Cmd+Shift+V) for summoning the overlay.
• Auto-paste on Enter — when on, Return pastes into the app you came from; Option+Return copies without pasting.
• Rebindable shortcuts grouped into Filters, Surfaces, and Actions — record a new combo, or reset one (or all) to defaults. Aloft warns you if a combo collides with another Aloft shortcut or a macOS system shortcut.
• A read-only list of the fixed navigation keys (arrows, Return, Tab, Esc, Space, and so on) that can't be remapped, so you can never lock yourself out.

Paste

• Single-click a row to paste — when on, one click pastes (off by default; normally you double-click or press Return).
• Multi-item separator — what to put between clips when you paste several text items at once (newline, comma, space, tab, custom…).
• Paste Queue defaults — split delimiter, Send after each (⏎), and Reverse order.

Privacy & Rules

• Auto-block password fields and Auto-block banking information (both on by default).
• Excluded apps — a comma-separated list of apps Aloft won't capture from. See Privacy & Security.
• Clipboard Rules — automatic regex rules (reshape or block on capture).
• Format Presets — named transform pipelines applied from a clip's Format & Paste menu. See Transforms, Rules & Export.

About

Aloft's icon, version, and tagline, a short feature list, and a button to open this help.

Aloft is built to be trustworthy with the things you copy. Your clipboard is some of the most sensitive data on your Mac, and Aloft treats it that way.

Everything stays on your Mac

Your entire history, your snippets, your groups, and your usage stats live in a local database on this Mac only. Aloft has no account and no sync server. Link previews fetch page metadata for URLs you copy, and licensing/update checks contact their providers; clipboard content is not uploaded. Clear link-preview metadata in Settings ▸ General ▸ Data & maintenance….

Password and sensitive-data blocking

Two protections are on by default in Settings ▸ Privacy & Rules:

• Block password fields — Aloft refuses to capture content that looks like a password, secret, token, or API key.
• Block banking information — content that matches credit-card or Social-Security-number patterns is dropped before it's ever saved.

Blocked content never enters your history at all.

Auto-paste respects secure fields

When you paste, Aloft checks whether the target is a secure input field (the kind macOS marks for passwords). If it is, Aloft won't auto-paste into it — so a stray Return can't dump a clip into a login box. It also refuses to paste into the login window and screen saver.

Excluded apps

Add apps to the Excluded Apps list (Settings ▸ Privacy & Rules) — a comma-separated list like 1Password, Keychain Access, Terminal — and Aloft skips clipboard capture entirely while those apps are frontmost.

Privacy Mode

Need to pause capture for a moment? Toggle Privacy Mode from the eye button in the overlay footer. While it's on, Aloft stops recording new clips until you turn it back off.

A note on Accessibility permission

Aloft asks for Accessibility access to anchor the overlay at your cursor and to paste for you. That permission lets Aloft read the caret's location and send keystrokes — it does not send your data anywhere. You can revoke it any time in System Settings ▸ Privacy & Security ▸ Accessibility; Aloft falls back to opening near the mouse pointer.

Aloft is built to be driven from the keyboard. The global hotkey works anywhere; all the others work while the overlay is open.

Most shortcuts that use Command, Option, or Control can be rebound in Settings ▸ Keyboard. The navigation keys (arrows, Return, Tab, Esc, Space, /) are fixed so you can never lock yourself out. Cmd+1–9 quick-paste bindings are also fixed. The bindings below are the defaults.

Global

Tip: some apps (Chrome, Slack, Notes, Google Docs) use Cmd+Shift+V for their own paste-and-match-style. If that clashes, rebind Aloft's overlay hotkey to Cmd+Shift+C in Settings ▸ Keyboard — a common clipboard-manager escape hatch.

Navigating the list

Search & focus

Surfaces & filters

Row numbers: the first nine rows show their Cmd-number so quick-paste is discoverable. By default they appear only while you hold Cmd; turn on Settings ▸ Overlay ▸ Behavior ▸ Always show row numbers to keep them visible, and pick the badge style (Bare digit / Chip) there too. Numbers follow the current results and sort order. Cmd+1 pastes the item labelled 1, even when the overlay opens above the caret and displays the rows in reverse.

Preview & item actions

Modes & chrome

The overlay opens in the wrong place, not at my cursor. Caret anchoring needs Accessibility permission. Grant it in System Settings ▸ Privacy & Security ▸ Accessibility. Without it, Aloft opens near the mouse pointer instead. A few apps don't expose their cursor location to macOS; in those, Aloft falls back to the pointer too.

Pressing Return doesn't paste — it only copies. Auto-paste may be off. Turn on Auto-paste on Enter in Settings ▸ Keyboard. Also check that Accessibility permission is granted, since auto-paste needs it to send the keystroke.

Aloft won't paste into a password box. That's deliberate. Aloft detects secure input fields and refuses to auto-paste into them, so a clip can't accidentally land in a login field. Paste it manually if you really mean to.

Something I copied didn't show up in history. A few things stop capture: Privacy Mode is on (the eye button in the footer); the source app is on your Excluded Apps list; or the content matched an automatic detector or a Block rule. Check Settings ▸ Privacy & Rules.

An item shows the wrong type (e.g. a phone number tagged as text). Aloft guesses content type from the text. If a guess is off, the clip still works normally — the type only affects which filter it falls under. You can still find it by searching its content.

Where is my data stored? Is any of it online? Your clipboard history is stored locally on your Mac — there's no sync account or clipboard server. Link previews, licensing, and update checks can contact their respective providers, but clipboard content is not uploaded. See Privacy & Security.

Can I move my history to another Mac? Yes — ⋯ ▸ Export ▸ JSON on one Mac, then Settings ▸ General ▸ Data & maintenance… ▸ Import History on the other. Automatic sync is planned for a future version.

There's no Aloft icon in my Dock. Aloft is an accessory app — it runs in the background with no Dock icon. Summon it with Cmd+Shift+V, and reach Settings from the gear button in the overlay footer.

A saved image clip shows a badge. For files and some images, Aloft references the original on disk rather than copying it, so a clip is only as available as the file behind it. The badge tells you which of two things happened:

• Drive not connected — the file is on a disk or memory card that isn't plugged in. Nothing is lost. Reconnect it and the badge clears on its own.
• Moved or deleted — the disk is connected but the file isn't where it was. Re-copy the file to capture it again.

Until then the clip can't be pasted, and Aloft won't delete it on your behalf.

How do I keep Aloft from filling up? History can clean itself up by age. Turn on Automatically clean up old history (Settings ▸ General ▸ History Cleanup) and unsaved clips older than your chosen window (1 day to 1 year) are removed automatically; leave it off to keep everything. Saved items are exempt and never expire. Use ⋯ ▸ Clear History to wipe the stream while keeping saved clips.