A minimal, open-source menu bar shelf for macOS — a temporary dock for everything you copy.
Pull CopyCat down from the menu bar and park anything on it — text, images, links, or files — then drag it back out into any app, or paste it with a single keystroke. It makes copy/paste and drag-and-drop across screens effortless.
- Lives in the menu bar — no Dock icon, no window clutter.
- Global hotkey — toggle the panel from anywhere with ⌥⌘V.
- Auto clipboard capture — turn it on and everything you ⌘C lands on the shelf automatically. Password managers / concealed items are always excluded.
- Quick-paste by number — open the shelf and press 1–9 to paste that item straight into the app you came from.
- Smart content types — colors show a live swatch, code renders monospaced, links get an "open" button, and images get one-tap OCR to extract their text.
- Drag in, drag out — drop onto the panel (or straight onto the menu bar icon), and drag any item back out into any app or Finder.
- Numbered & ordered — items are numbered in copy order; "copy all in order" grabs the whole list at once.
- Floats & stays put — the panel stays open while you work; move it by its header.
- Persistent — items (and their files) survive restarts.
- Auto-updates via Sparkle. Clean, translucent, native SwiftUI.
Smart-typed items with copy-order numbers · the drop-anything panel
Download: grab the latest signed & notarized CopyCat.dmg from
Releases, open it, and drag CopyCat into Applications.
Or build from source:
git clone https://github.com/upbrew/copycat.git
cd copycat
./build_app.sh # compiles + bundles build/CopyCat.app
open build/CopyCat.appTo launch at login: System Settings → General → Login Items → + → add CopyCat.
Quick-paste's auto-⌘V uses macOS Accessibility permission (you're prompted once). Until granted, it copies + focuses the app so you can paste manually.
| Action | How |
|---|---|
| Toggle the panel | ⌥⌘V (or click the menu bar icon) |
| Auto-capture every copy | Toggle the radio icon in the header |
| Add an item | Drag text/image/link/file onto the panel |
| Stash without opening | Drop straight onto the menu bar icon |
| Paste an item | Open shelf, press its number 1–9 |
| Copy an item | Click its card |
| OCR an image | Hover the image card → ⌖ button |
| Open a link | Hover the link card → ↗ button |
| Drag an item out | Drag its card into any app or Finder |
| Move the panel | Drag its header |
| Remove one / clear all | Card ✕ / 🗑 in header |
To change the hotkey, edit the keyCode / modifiers passed to HotKeyManager
in CopyCatApp.swift.
Everything on the shelf is written to disk under
~/Library/Application Support/CopyCat/, so each item can be re-dragged as a real
file and the shelf is restored on next launch. OCR uses on-device Vision; nothing
ever leaves your Mac.
Package.swift SwiftPM manifest (macOS 14+), Sparkle dependency
Sources/CopyCat/
CopyCatApp.swift @main, status item, floating panel, hotkey, quick-paste
ShelfView.swift Panel UI + drag-and-drop handling
ItemCardView.swift Card: smart thumbnails, click-copy, drag-out, OCR
ShelfStore.swift Persistence, clipboard watcher, file backing, OCR
ShelfItem.swift Item model
SmartContent.swift Color / code detection
HotKeyManager.swift Global ⌥⌘V hotkey (Carbon)
CatIcon.swift Menu bar cat glyph
UpdaterManager.swift Sparkle updater wrapper
icon/ Icon + banner generators (CoreGraphics)
build_app.sh Build + bundle (embeds Sparkle, ad-hoc signs)
sign_app.sh Inside-out code signing helper
make_dmg.sh Drag-to-Applications DMG installer
release.sh Signed + notarized release pipeline
RELEASING.md How to cut a notarized release
Issues and PRs welcome. Build with swift build, or ./build_app.sh to produce a
runnable app bundle. Please keep the UI minimal and the footprint small.
MIT © 2026 Bibin Mathew