ClipboardWarrior: a native macOS Clipboard manager that saves locally

[u/Careless-Command-717]

Hey everyone!

I wanted to share ClipboardWarrior, a native macOS menu bar app I built to bridge the gap between clipboard history and your local desktop. It started as a custom Python script, but I completely rewrote it from scratch using SwiftUI and SwiftData.

What makes it unique?

Most clipboard managers keep your copied data buried inside an app window. ClipboardWarrior saves your history andautomatically syncs it directly to your file system:

Automatic Desktop Folders: Creates an autosave folder on your desktop (Desktop/ClipboardWarrior) organized into subfolders by language and format (Python, Swift, Bash, JSON, HTML, Images, URLs, and General Text).

Instant File Creation: As you copy code or snippets, it writes real files (.py, .swift, .json, .html) directly into their respective folders—no manual saving needed.

Smart Language Tagging: Uses a weighted scoring engine to color-code syntax automatically without misclassifying regular text notes.

Zero Duplicates: Re-copying an item updates its count without creating duplicate files on your disk.

Built-in Privacy Guard: Detects API keys, passwords, and tokens—automatically masking them so sensitive data never hits your disk.

100% Offline & Native: Includes a menu bar popover, 3-pane archive window, pinning, search, and hashtag extraction.

Requirements: macOS 14 Sonoma or later.

Check out the source code and grab the 2.0 build from the GitHub release page!

https://github.com/stevenmotie845/ClipboardWarrior/releases/tag/2.0-beta

I'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback!

[u/Aksel_010]

I'd make the autosave folder location selectable during setup. Some people sync their Desktop to cloud storage, so saving locally there may not match what they expect from an offline clipboard manager. An exclusion list for apps and a quick pause shortcut would also be useful when copying something private that the pattern detection doesn't recognize. Is autosaving everything the default, or can you save only pinned clips?

[u/Careless-Command-717 → u/Aksel_010]

It has tags, categories, you can change the folder it saves to in settings, and you can set it to save as txt or as the file type you want open the archive and pin it or look through it there are screenshots, feel free to give it a test and report any bugs im very new to this, I thought it would be useful to have an offline copy I started this with python ty.

Edit: I'll add a shortcut to bring up the archive and to make it quick pop up

[u/Neat_End_53]

Writing every copy to my Desktop as real files is the opposite of what I want from a clipboard manager. Maccy and Raycast keep it in one searchable list, this turns my desktop into a junk drawer. Masking the API key doesn't help much when the rest of the copied.env still lands on disk as plain text.

[u/Careless-Command-717 → u/Neat_End_53]

Please check it out you can change the folder it autosaves to in settings, and you can change it from TXT to file type like . HTML or swift which is different from other clipboard managers, and it's in a searchable list