Your clipboard stays on your Mac.
Pasteward has no account, no cloud sync, no analytics, no crash reporting and no ads. Here is exactly what it does with your data.
What it saves
What you copy: text, rich text, links, images, files (as references, not copies), colors and e-mail addresses, with the app each came from, the time, and the aliases, names, favorites and collections you add. For images it also stores any text recognized inside them, so they can be searched. It all lives in ~/Library/Application Support/Pasteward, readable only by you, and is never uploaded.
The date Pasteward was first opened on a Mac is kept there in small signed files and, once, in a single login Keychain item named “Pasteward trial start”, so deleting the app’s folders does not reset it. It holds only that date. Pasteward reads it only if those files are gone, which is the one time macOS may ask whether Pasteward can use it. You can allow it or deny it, and you can delete the item in Keychain Access.
What it never saves
- Anything a password manager marks as concealed.
- Anything that looks like an API key, private key, token or card number.
- Copies from apps on your ignored list (which includes Keychain Access and common password managers), or containing an ignored word you set.
- Optionally, things copied on another Apple device through Universal Clipboard.
All of this is configurable in Settings → Privacy & History. Windows that can show a clip are hidden from screen recording and sharing by default.
When it uses the network
- Link previews (on by default, you can turn them off). Pasteward asks the website for a title and picture for links you copied. The site can see your IP address. Local and private addresses are never contacted.
- The built-in link viewer. A page loads only when you click it.
- Updates. When you press Check for Updates, or once a day if you switch on automatic checking (off by default). The request contains nothing about you or your clips.
- License checks. When you activate a key, Pasteward sends the key and your Mac’s name to the site you bought it from, Polar or Lemon Squeezy, to confirm it is valid. About once a week it asks again, and when you press Deactivate This Mac it frees the seat. Nothing about your clips is ever sent. Until you activate a key, Pasteward contacts nobody about licensing.
Nothing else is sent anywhere. There is no telemetry.
Suggestions
Suggestions are computed on your Mac from a small table of which clip was pasted into which app and when. It never contains the text of a clip. Nothing is learned while a password field has the keyboard, and you can turn the feature off or clear everything it learned in Settings → Suggestions.
Permissions
Pasteward asks only for Accessibility, so it can press ⌘V in the app you are typing in. While the panel is open it reads the keys you press so you can search and navigate without leaving your app; none of it is recorded. It never asks for Screen Recording, Full Disk Access, Input Monitoring, the camera, the microphone, contacts or location.
Deleting everything
Settings → Privacy & History → Clear History removes part or all of it. Deleted clips go to the Trash first unless you switch that off. To remove all of it, quit Pasteward and delete the folder above.
What is not protected
- The history is not encrypted by Pasteward. Anyone who can read your account’s files, or a backup of them, can read it. Turn on FileVault, and use the ignore rules for anything sensitive.
- Pasteward’s own backups keep clips you later delete until you delete the backups.
- A clip you copy is also on the macOS clipboard, visible to every app you run, as always.
- The detector for sensitive data uses patterns. It is good, not perfect.
Questions? Open an issue and leave anything private out of it.