A hyperlocal clipboard for macOS. Press CMD+SHIFT+X and move text between screens instantly.
No cloud. No accounts. No tracking.
Your Mac's clipboard is half a tool. You paste something, close the app, and it's gone. Unsafe paste websites demand your trust. Loading an app takes forever when you just need to move five words.
Scratchpad is a one-keystroke scratchpad that lives on your Mac. Paste something, close it, grab it later. Your text stays local. It stays yours.
Download Scratchpad v1.0 (3.6 MB)
Or via Homebrew:
brew install stuartthomas/scratchpad/scratchpad- Launch the app from Applications
- Press
CMD+SHIFT+Xanywhere - Your scratchpad appears
- Paste, edit, copy, close
That's it. No setup. No accounts. No friction.
- Instant access —
CMD+SHIFT+X. Not in the dock. Not in Spotlight. Just there. - Local first — Your text lives on your Mac. Not on a server. Not in someone else's database.
- Persistent — Stays until you clear it. Survives restarts.
- Plain text only — Strips all formatting on paste. Like Notepad, but better.
- Floating window — Always on top, visible across all spaces.
- Menu bar app — Lives in the menu bar. Left-click toggles, right-click for options.
- Window memory — Remembers size and position between sessions.
┌─────────────────────────────────┐
│ main.swift │ Entry point (accessory app)
├─────────────────────────────────┤
│ AppDelegate.swift │ Menu bar, window, keyboard
├─────────────────────────────────┤
│ HotkeyManager.swift │ CMD+SHIFT+X via Carbon API
│ PlainTextView.swift │ NSTextView (strips formatting)
│ StorageManager.swift │ ~/Library/Application Support/
│ WindowManager.swift │ Frame persistence
└─────────────────────────────────┘
462 lines of Swift. Zero dependencies. Zero frameworks beyond AppKit.
- macOS 11+
- Intel or Apple Silicon
DMG won't open?
xattr -d com.apple.quarantine Scratchpad-1.0.dmgApp won't launch? Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Click "Open Anyway"
Keyboard shortcut not working?
Check no other app uses CMD+SHIFT+X. Relaunch Scratchpad.
AGPL v3 — Free for open-source use. Commercial licence available.
See LICENSE for full terms (including English law provisions and CDPA assertions).
Stuart Thomas — Whitby, North Yorkshire, England
- Web: stuart-thomas.com
- Email: stuart.thomas@mac.com
- NFC Platform: authenticwhitbyjet.co.uk
Scratchpad is free. If it saves you time:
Copyright © 2026 Stuart Thomas. All rights reserved. Protected under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA). Moral rights asserted under sections 77, 80, and 84.