Maccy Ignored Apps: How to Configure What Your Clipboard Never Records

Quick answer: To keep an app out of your Maccy history, open Maccy App → Settings → Ignore and add the app to the ignored applications list. Maccy Mac then skips anything copied from that app. For finer control, you can also ignore specific pasteboard types or filter copied text with regular expressions.

The scenario that makes people open this tab

You copy a one-time login code from your password manager, switch windows, and later press your Maccy Clipboard shortcut. There it is, sitting in the list next to a grocery list and a Slack link. Maccy did exactly what a clipboard manager is supposed to do, and that’s the problem.

A clipboard history is only as private as the rules you give it. This guide walks through what Maccy’s ignore settings actually control, how to choose between them, and how to debug the common cases where an ignored app still shows up.

Where are Maccy’s ignore settings?

Open Maccy from the menu bar (or your shortcut), choose Settings, and select the Ignore tab. Depending on your version, you’ll find these controls :

These layers answer different questions. The app list asks who copied this? The pasteboard type list asks did the source declare this sensitive? The regex layer asks what does the content look like? Serious privacy setups use more than one.

How do I add an app to Maccy’s ignore list?

1. Open Maccy → Settings → Ignore.
2. In the applications section, click the + button.
3. Pick the app from /Applications (or wherever it lives) in the file picker and confirm.
4. Copy some text inside that app, then open Maccy. The item should not appear.

Always run step 4. A rule you haven’t tested is a rule you’re assuming works.

To remove an app, select it in the list and click −. Changes apply to future copies only. Anything Maccy captured before the rule existed stays in your history until you delete it.

What does Maccy ignore by default?

Maccy’s defaults already skip several pasteboard types that apps use to signal “don’t store this.” These include the community convention types published at nspasteboard.org: org.nspasteboard.ConcealedType, org.nspasteboard.TransientType and org.nspasteboard.AutoGeneratedType. The default list also includes identifiers used by some specific tools .

The catch: this protection is voluntary on the source app’s side. A password manager that follows the convention is invisible to Maccy. One that doesn’t will be recorded like any other app. Check your own tool rather than trusting the default.

Which should you use: app rule, pasteboard type, or regex?

A note on regex rules

Regex ignores are powerful and easy to get wrong. A pattern that is too broad silently drops legitimate copies, and you won’t notice until you go looking for something that was never saved. Keep patterns narrow and anchored. Two examples of the style, to adapt and test on your own data:

# Looks like a 6-digit one-time code, and nothing else
^\d{6}$

# Looks like a GitHub personal access token prefix
^ghp_[A-Za-z0-9]{36}$

Test each pattern on a copy you expect to be ignored, and on a copy you expect to be kept. Both tests matter.

Which apps are worth ignoring?

This depends on your workflow, but these categories are the usual candidates:

• Password managers such as 1Password, Bitwarden or KeePassXC, even when they mark secrets as concealed. A second layer costs nothing.
• Banking and finance apps with account or card details.
• Authenticator apps that show one-time codes.
• Private notes or journaling apps, if you’d be uncomfortable seeing those lines resurface.
• Remote desktop and VM clients, which can relay clipboard content from another machine.

Browsers are the awkward case. Ignoring your browser would drop every URL and snippet you copy while browsing, which is usually far too blunt. For browser-based password managers, a regex or pasteboard-type approach is typically better than ignoring the whole browser.

Why is an ignored app still showing up in Maccy?

Work through this checklist in order. Most cases resolve in the first three steps.

1. Check the timing. The item may predate your rule. Delete it from the history and copy again.
2. Check you added the right app. Duplicates are common: a beta and stable build, an App Store version and a direct download, or a helper app that does the actual copying. Each has its own bundle identifier.
3. Find the real source. Copy the item, then compare against the app you think produced it. Copies relayed through a clipboard sync tool, a launcher or a browser extension may be attributed to a different app than the one you were looking at.
4. Look up the bundle identifier. Run this in Terminal to see an app’s identifier, then compare it with what you added:

   osascript -e 'id of app "Safari"'
   # or
   mdls -name kMDItemCFBundleIdentifier -r /Applications/Safari.app

5. Restart Maccy. Quit from the menu bar and relaunch. It rules out a stale state.
6. Check for a second clipboard tool. If another utility re-copies items (for example, a text expander that pastes by writing to the clipboard), Maccy may see those as coming from that tool.

Setting it through Terminal

Maccy stores preferences under the org.p0deje.Maccy domain. Power users sometimes inspect or script these values with defaults read org.p0deje.Maccy. The exact key names for ignore lists can vary between versions, so read the domain first and don’t write blindly . Quit Maccy before editing preferences, or your changes may be overwritten.

What ignore rules can’t do

Honest limits, so you don’t build false confidence:

• They aren’t retroactive. Past entries stay until deleted.
• They only cover what passes through the clipboard. Drag and drop and screenshots saved to a file are outside this scope.
• They depend on how the source app behaves. Pasteboard-type protection works only if the app sets the type.
• They don’t protect against someone with access to your unlocked Mac. Maccy is local-first, with history stored on your machine, but anyone at your keyboard can open it. Consider Maccy’s history clearing options and your Mac’s screen-lock habits as complements.

A sensible starting configuration

If you want a configuration to copy and then adjust:

1. Add your password manager and authenticator to the ignored applications list.
2. Leave the default pasteboard type rules in place.
3. Add one or two narrow regex rules for patterns you handle often, such as tokens or one-time codes.
4. Test each rule with a real copy.
5. Review the history once a week at first and delete anything that shouldn’t be there. Every miss tells you which rule to add.

Frequently asked questions

How do I stop Maccy from saving copies from a specific app?

Go to Settings → Ignore, click + under applications and choose the app. Maccy then skips future copies from it. Existing history items stay until you delete them.

Does Maccy record passwords from password managers?

Not if the manager marks them as concealed or transient, which Maccy ignores by default. Not all apps do this, so adding your password manager to the ignore list adds a second layer.

Why is Maccy still capturing an app I ignored?

Usually a wrong bundle identifier, a helper process doing the copying, or an item captured before the rule. Work through the checklist above.

Does ignoring an app delete what Maccy already saved?

No. Rules apply to future copies only. Delete earlier entries manually or clear the history.

The takeaway

Ignored apps are the blunt instrument, pasteboard types are the polite convention, and regex is the safety net for everything else. Use the first for apps you fully distrust, rely on the second where apps cooperate, and add the third for patterns that follow you across tools. Then test, because a privacy rule you haven’t verified is only a hope.

Maccy is free and open source, so you can read how the ignore logic works in the project’s repository if you want certainty beyond the settings screen. Which app was the first one you added to your ignore list?