Expert’s Rating

Pros

Cons

Our Verdict

Best Prices Today: Pastebot 2.0

I still miss theScrapbookthat was part of the pre - OS X chain of Macintosh scheme exit . It was like a super clipboard that permit you agree several items ; you could scroll through , find fault a “ scrap ” to re-create , and then paste it into a program . Since the inception of OS X , many utilities have sought to duplicate and inflate Scrapbook . But for my money , I ’m not sure any has brought the concept to the full fore and updated it for New needs untilPastebot 2($20 on theApp Store ) . ( Pastebot was in a long beta , and its Lord opted to count it “ 2.0 ” as a result . )

In February 2015 , Joe Kissell write a thorough turn - up of clipboard - contend usefulness , some of which have a mass of non - scrapbook functions , too . Pastebot 2 has the good features shared among those , and adds more by offer customizable filter and a clipboard “ accumulator ” that I ’ll explain after in this review .

Scrapbook lives

Once instal , Pastebot captures everything that you copy or cut to the system clipboard . you could get at this mysterious scrapbook from either a system menubar point or the app , where the clippings seem in reverse chronological order . Each clip is marked by type — text , http , figure , RTF , and more — and shown in either a one - contrast or thumbnail trailer . you may opt to show the full contents of clippings , too , as a sight option , and you may use a Quick Look - panache spacebar press to show a larger or full preview . The press clipping also commemorate the reference , distance , date , and app of ancestry .

The Pastebot app previews everything you ’ve copied and captured .

you may choose how deep the backlist go , from 50 to 500 entries . And you could opt to bar extremely large items by specifying a threshold in megabytes ; the nonremittal is 25 . That ’s useful if you ’re replicate large look-alike or datasets within a program . Pastebot also includes a Blacklist tab in Preferences so you’re able to boot out the clipboard from apps you specify , like those that manage passwords ( 1Password , LastPass , Keychain , and so forth ) , and those for which you ’ll never want to capture the clipboard , which can admit figure of speech and video - editing programme .

pastebot 2 main clippings window

With an iCloud account , you’re able to synchronize items across all your Macs . An iOS interlingual rendition that interoperates with the macOS Pastebot is n’t out yet . But Pastebot for macOS works just fine with the Universal Clipboard available in Sierra and iOS 10 to let you sync something you simulate from Pastebot to an iPad or iPhone .

I ’ve already notice it handy just in testing to find lose paste item , which happens to me when I ’m manage multiple window and project at once . You get it on the problem : you cut ( not copy ) something from a document intending to paste it elsewhere in a moment , but then a distraction come forth , such as another trouble in the same text . You copy and paste there — and realize you ’ve lose your premature clipboard . you could furiously press Undo if in an app with many layers , but then you ’ve lost your unexampled change . Pastebot permit you walk back in time for accidents , but you’re able to also apply it this way intentionally . It has a full - schoolbook search lineament if you do n’t need to scroll through and scan for the entrance you need .

The Quick Paste Menu lets you paste late detail by number .

pastebot 2 quick paste menu

Clippings in Pastebot can — of course — be copy in a variety of way from the main app window and the Quick Paste Menu , invoked from the system menubar or with an optional key stroke . In the main app , you’re able to double snap or select and contract the right-hand arrow to copy . With the Quick Paste Menu , however , the last ten clippings are designate a number in ascending order from 1 through 9 and stop with 0 as the 10th . Press the appropriate number key , and the item is copied , the windowpane dismissed , and the item is glue at the current foreground app ’s introduction point or accepted as a pasted point .

I expect most hoi polloi will expend most of their using the Quick Paste Menu , the behavior of which can be customized , too . or else of seem in a fixed placement , you’re able to prefer to have it always pop up behind the current black eye cursor location . you may also set it so that you admit down the invocation keys , specify to Command - Shift - V by default , and select an item that ’s automatically pasted when you release those keys .

Tapbots has build these features out in an easy - to - use and broadly explicable style , though it provides a brief and well - write online manual as well , a squeamish plus in an era of apps with no documentation at all . However , Pastebot does well when you wait beyond these basics that are shared among most clipping utilities .

pastebot 2 filter preview

Custom filters and a sequential paste queue

Filters transform text , including into HTML , and lease you see a preview of the results before pasting .

While many competitors declare oneself text filters , Pastebot not only has a number of preassemble conversions — such as decoding universal resource locator and converting rich text to quetch textbook — you’re able to make new , multi - step filters that would otherwise require using something like text factories in BBEdit or a set of macros in something like Keyboard Maestro .

For good example , if I copy a URL , I might want to clean it up , change thehttp://tohttps://(to insure a secure nexus ) , and then encode the URL to check that none of the lineament I copied have especial formatting that wo n’t work as text . That ’s three round-eyed steps in a filter , all available from popup menus . Pastebot also include some helpful HTML formatting , such as produce a lean .

pastebot 2 edit filter

Filters can be invoked by aright - clicking an particular in the Pastebot app , and by clicking a Filter ikon in the Quick Paste Menu , from which you could select the filter . Even better , filter can have an assigned keystroke , let you invoke a filter against the text edition presently held in the organization clipboard . And , to top it off , you could tally a key stroke to enable a global feature that conjure up the last filter you used to put on against the current clipboard contents .

Creating a filter is aboveboard , and can have multiple steps .

The Sequential Paste waiting line requires a little explanation before explaining how it works . It ’s an solvent to the situation you may meet when you have a set of datum in one shoes you need to copy to another , which comes up for me all the clip with Web soma . Instead of “ swap to tab , copy , switch back to tab , feel the field , paste , ” you could copy everything as separate detail to the waiting line . The queue can take up to 25 item .

pastebot 2 sequential paste queue

Then you may paste item from the waiting line into a new place . For illustration , might want to re-create the name , get off destination , phone number , and e-mail address of a contact as disjoined items from an e-mail , web pageboy , or your contact lean , because you have to enter them as individual items on another flesh .

The queue ca n’t be edited or the order of items glue out of it changed . I desire that ’s improved in a next release .

The Sequential Paste waiting line make it easy to re-create many particular from one place and then paste them in order somewhere else , as in a form .

Pastebot also permit you create Pasteboards , which are persistent collections of clipping . The app come with a set of inspirational quote . dogged clip can have keyboard shortcuts attached , blurring the line between Pastebot and some features in TextExpander and Keyboard Maestro . ( Keyboard Maestro and the app - launcher - and - much - more app LaunchBar have some clipboard features , so the business line can be very fuzzy across utilities . )

Bottom line

If you line up yourself wishing you did n’t have just a single level of clipboard depth , or yearn for the sweet return of Scrapbook , Pastebot 2 provide that in an effective way with lots of options for customise to work best with you . The combining of being able to depute keystrokes and change basic demeanour while retaining a inscrutable backlist of clippings means you’re able to retain the chronicle of what you ’ve contract and copy and feel and apply it easily .

While Pastebot ’s basic features are well implemented and work as expected , it shines in the extras , especially the robust but not consuming filter editor in chief . transubstantiate text , hypertext mark-up language , and URL , and removing the “ magnificence ” from deep text remain unco common labor for many people , try by the support email I receive from lector .