How to use the Mac menu bar clipboard panel
On Mac, the menu bar icon opens a Quick Panel, not the main window. That panel is for finding, copying, pasting, and dragging items while you stay in the app you were already using.
The full Mac window is still there when you need to edit, organize folders, or change settings.
Open the Quick Panel
- Click the KeyPaste icon in the menu bar.
- Or press the global shortcut. The default is Shift-Command-V. You can change, clear, or restore it in Settings. Opening the panel does not need Accessibility permission.
If the panel is hidden, the shortcut shows it on the display under the pointer. If it is visible but not focused, the shortcut brings it forward. If it is already focused, the shortcut hides it.
What you can do in the panel
The source menu follows the same layout as the main app: Inbox at the top, then Library (All and folders), then tags. The current source title does not show counts.
From a selected item you can paste into the app that was frontmost when the panel opened, copy, drag to another app or Finder, or open word selection from the right-click menu. Double-click and Return use the Quick Panel primary action, which defaults to paste. Option-double-click, Option-Return, and Command-C copy only. Link cards still open in the browser on double-click; Return pastes the URL.
Paste to the frontmost app needs Accessibility permission in System Settings. KeyPaste uses that permission only to press Command-V. It does not read other apps’ windows or record your keyboard. Copy and drag keep working without it. If permission is off, the primary action copies and asks you to press Command-V.
When you need the full editor or source list, use Open Main Window from the panel.
Each time the panel appears from a hidden state, it uses the same “open to” setting as the rest of KeyPaste, but it remembers its own last-used source.
How this differs from the main window
The main window has the sidebar, search, and full editing tools. Closing it does not quit KeyPaste if the menu bar icon is enabled. The menu bar icon still opens only the Quick Panel.
Drag-and-drop works in both places. On recent macOS versions you can drag several selected items out as one session. Older macOS versions keep single-item drag from the panel.