Switching from Raycast to Maccy: What Changes and How to Set It Up

You can switch from Raycast to Maccy in about ten minutes, but your old history won’t come with you. Maccy App is a dedicated, free, open-source clipboard manager for macOS that stores history locally. It replaces only Raycast’s Clipboard History command, not Raycast itself, so most people keep Raycast as a launcher and hand clipboard duties to Maccy Mac.

Why do people leave Raycast’s clipboard history?

Raycast is a great launcher, and its clipboard history is competent. The reasons people move are usually practical rather than ideological:

Focus. A clipboard history that lives inside a launcher means opening a larger tool for a small job. Maccy opens, searches, pastes, and gets out of the way.
Open source and auditability. Maccy’s code is public. If you care what software does with everything you copy (including passwords that slip through), being able to read the source matters.
No account, no cloud. Maccy keeps data on your Mac and doesn’t sync it anywhere.
Cost and plan limits. Raycast’s clipboard history retention has varied by plan . Maccy is free when installed from GitHub or Homebrew.

None of this makes Raycast the wrong choice for everyone. If you rely on its extensions or AI features, keep it. This guide is for people who want a dedicated clipboard tool.

Raycast clipboard history vs. Maccy: what’s actually different?

Area	Raycast Clipboard History	Maccy
Scope	One command inside a full launcher	Clipboard history only
Source code	Closed source	Open source
Price	Free tier plus paid Pro	Free via GitHub / Homebrew; also sold on the Mac App Store
Account	Raycast account used for many features	None
Sync across devices	Not the focus of the clipboard feature	None, by design
Search	Yes	Yes, search as you type (fuzzy by default)
Pinning favorites	Yes	Yes
Ignore specific apps	Yes	Yes, Settings → Ignore
Extensibility	Large extension store, snippets, scripts	None; it does one job

Raycast wins on breadth. Maccy Clipboard wins on being small, transparent, and predictable.

Step-by-step: migrating from Raycast to Maccy

1. Save what you still need from Raycast

Because nothing imports, open Raycast’s Clipboard History and copy out anything you’ll want again: recurring commands, addresses, code snippets, template text. For things you paste constantly, consider whether they belong in a proper snippet or text-expansion tool rather than a history list. History is a poor long-term home for reusable text.

2. Install Maccy

The simplest route is Homebrew:

brew install maccy

You can also download a release from the project’s GitHub page, or buy it on the Mac App Store if you want to support development. Check the release notes for the minimum macOS version your Mac needs .

3. Grant the permissions it asks for

To paste directly into the frontmost app, Maccy needs Accessibility access (System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility). Without it, Maccy can still put an item on the clipboard, and you’d press ⌘V yourself. If pasting seems to “do nothing,” this permission is the first thing to check.

4. Choose a hotkey that doesn’t fight Raycast

Open Maccy’s settings and set the global shortcut. Maccy’s default is ⇧⌘C . If you’ve bound Raycast’s Clipboard History to something like ⇧⌘V, keep them different while you overlap. Once you’ve committed to Maccy, you can reassign whichever combo feels more natural to your muscle memory. People coming from Raycast often just give Maccy the shortcut they used before.

5. Run both for a few days

Both apps read the macOS pasteboard independently, so they won’t conflict as long as their hotkeys differ. Expect each to record the same copies. Use Maccy by default, and fall back to Raycast only when you miss something. After a few days, you’ll know whether you actually reach for the fallback.

6. Turn off Raycast’s clipboard history

When you’re confident, disable the Clipboard History command in Raycast’s extensions settings and clear its stored history. This removes a second copy of everything you’ve ever copied, which is worth doing if any of it was sensitive.

How do you set Maccy up to feel familiar?

Keep it keyboard-driven. Open the menu, type to search, press Return to paste. That loop is the same muscle memory you had in Raycast.
Pin what you reuse. Select an item and press ⌥P to pin it . Pinned items stay at the top and survive history clearing.
Delete mistakes fast. Highlight an item and press ⌥⌫ to remove it . Useful when you’ve copied a secret.
Tune history size. The default is modest. Raise it in settings if you want a long tail of items, lower it if you prefer less data sitting on disk.
Choose paste behavior. Maccy has options for pasting automatically and for stripping formatting . Plain-text paste is the setting most people end up wanting.

Which privacy settings matter most after switching?

A clipboard manager records whatever you copy, so a few minutes of configuration pays off:

Ignore your password manager. Go to Maccy → Settings → Ignore and add apps whose copies should never be stored. Many password managers also mark their copies as concealed or transient, and Maccy can ignore certain pasteboard types , but explicitly ignoring the app is the safer belt-and-braces approach.
Clear history on a schedule that matches your habits. If you often copy sensitive text, clear history at the end of the day.
Remember it’s local. History stays on your Mac, which is a feature, but it also means it’s only as protected as your disk. FileVault is worth having on.

What will you miss from Raycast?

Be honest with yourself before you uninstall anything:

Everything that isn’t clipboard. Window management, snippets, quicklinks, extensions, calculator, and the rest of the launcher. Maccy won’t replace those.
Ecosystem integrations. If an extension or workflow consumes clipboard contents, it won’t see Maccy’s history. It will still read the live clipboard, though.
Cross-device continuity. If you relied on history following you between Macs, Maccy’s local-only approach won’t provide it.

The pragmatic setup for most people is both: Raycast as the launcher, Maccy as the clipboard manager. If you instead want to leave Raycast entirely, you’ll need replacements for those other features, which is a separate project.

Troubleshooting common switching problems

Pasting does nothing

Check Accessibility permission for Maccy, then quit and relaunch it.

The hotkey opens the wrong thing

Two apps are bound to the same shortcut. Change one in Maccy’s settings or Raycast’s hotkey settings.

Items I copied aren’t showing up

Check Settings → Ignore to make sure the source app isn’t excluded, and confirm Maccy is running (it lives in the menu bar).

History feels shorter than Raycast’s

Raise the history size limit in settings.

Frequently asked questions

Can I import my Raycast clipboard history into Maccy?

No. There’s no built-in import, and the two apps store history in their own formats. Copy out anything you need before switching and let Maccy start fresh.

Can I use Raycast and Maccy at the same time?

Yes. Both monitor the system pasteboard on their own, so just assign different hotkeys. Expect both to log the same copies.

Is Maccy a full Raycast replacement?

No. Maccy only handles clipboard history. Raycast is a launcher with many other features, so Maccy replaces only that one piece.

Does Maccy sync clipboard history between Macs?

No. It’s local-first by design, and your history stays on the machine you copied it on.

The bottom line

If Raycast’s clipboard history is the only part of Raycast you use daily, Maccy is a cleaner fit: small, open-source, and private by default. If you love the rest of Raycast, you don’t have to choose. Keep the launcher, hand the clipboard to Maccy, and give the overlap a few days before you cut the cord. Try Maccy and see whether the simpler tool sticks.

What’s the one clipboard workflow you can’t live without? That’s the one to test first.