Copied Over Something Important? How to Get Back What You Copied Earlier on Mac

You copied a link to send to someone. Before you pasted it, you copied something else. Now the link is gone, and you can't remember which of the thirty open tabs it came from. Or worse: you cut a paragraph, meaning to paste it lower down, and copied over it.

Here's what's recoverable, in the order worth trying, and how to stop it happening again.

Why the old copy disappears

The Mac clipboard (Apple calls it the pasteboard) holds one thing at a time. Every copy replaces the previous one. You can see what's on it right now in Finder with Edit → Show Clipboard, but there's no "previous" button. Our explainer on where the clipboard is on a Mac goes into how it works.

1. Check Spotlight's clipboard history (macOS Tahoe and later)

macOS Tahoe added a clipboard history to Spotlight:

1. Press ⌘ Space.
2. Press ⌘ 4, or click the clipboard button.
3. Scroll or type to search what you copied recently.

If you've never opened it before, it may ask you to allow clipboard results first. Apple doesn't document how long items are kept, so treat it as a short-term safety net. More in Spotlight clipboard history, explained.

2. If you cut text, undo in the app you cut it from

Cut text isn't stored anywhere except the clipboard. But most apps remember the cut as an editing step. Go back to the document and press ⌘ Z until the text reappears. This works in Pages, Notes, Mail, TextEdit, Word, Google Docs and most editors, as long as you haven't closed the document.

3. Go back to the source

• A link: open your browser history (⌘ Y in Safari and Chrome) and search for a word from the page title.
• Text from a chat or email: search the app for a word you remember from the message.
• A copied image: if it came from a web page, the page is in your history; if it was a screenshot sent to the clipboard, it was never saved and can't be recovered.
• Something from your iPhone: Universal Clipboard only keeps an item for a short time, so copy it again on the phone.

4. What doesn't work

There's no hidden clipboard log to restore from, Time Machine doesn't back up the clipboard, and "clipboard recovery" downloads that promise otherwise can't get back something that was never written to disk. If none of the steps above found it, it's gone, which is the argument for the next section.

Never lose a copy again

A clipboard manager saves everything you copy, so the previous copy, and the hundred before it, are always a search away. With EasyPaste:

• Everything is kept: text, links, code, colours, images, screenshots and files, up to 2,000 clips.
• One shortcut to get it back: press ⌃ ⌘ V in any app, type a word you remember, press Return.
• Even faster for recent copies: ⌃ ⌘ 1 to 0 copy one of your last ten clips straight back to the clipboard.
• Search remembers the source: it matches the name of the app you copied from, so "safari" lists links from Safari.
• Images are searchable by their text, so a screenshot copied to the clipboard isn't lost the moment you copy something else.
• Passwords aren't kept: items password managers mark as private, and text that looks like an API key or card number, are skipped and never saved.

Old clips clear themselves after a month by default (you choose a week, two weeks, a month, three months or never), and anything you pin stays.

Recovery options at a glance

Frequently asked questions

Can you see clipboard history on a Mac?

On macOS Tahoe and later, yes: press Command-Space, then Command-4, to see Spotlight's clipboard history. Earlier versions of macOS only keep the last thing you copied, which you can see in Finder under Edit, Show Clipboard.

How do I recover something I copied but didn't paste?

If you've copied something else since, check Spotlight's clipboard history on macOS Tahoe, then go back to where you copied it from. If a clipboard manager was running, search its history. Otherwise macOS doesn't keep a copy.

How do I get back text I cut on a Mac?

Go back to the document you cut it from and press Command-Z to undo the cut. The text comes back as long as the document is still open.

Does a clipboard manager save passwords I copy?

Good ones don't. EasyPaste skips items that password managers mark as concealed, plus text that looks like an API key, private key or card number, and never writes them to disk.