Clipboard history in OS X?

Just to make the point: this is a thread with lots of people saying "I've lost something that I used to have in the clipboard."

Now go to the threads saying "Why doesn't Apple offer Cut in the Finder?".

Yes, the clipboard is terrible 1970s and should be revamped for the modern computing era. But for the moment, not being able to hold the only copy of a file in there is a good thing.

What worked for me

Hello little said:

Hi Slug420, I see you've posted a bit about retrieving past clipboard entries. I f###d up and some how lost some things 4/5 &4/6 that I had copied briefly to my clipboard to paste into word for word count info. Can I see those clips? I have done little cutting and pasting since then. See Clyppan, jump cut, ClipMenu & inventive.us/cliplite, but cannot tell if they can access history prior to installation or only going forward. Any thoughts you have would be most helpful. Am running OXS Lion. Best, elizabeth.@earthlink.net thank you

Click to expand...

I just reached this thread because I had a similar problem and needed a solution for a cut I failed to paste before I cut new stuff. I also needed history prior to installing any of these apps. It seems easy now and I don't know why I didn't think of it before but, it actually worked. After I didn't find a solution here I went back to my doc. I had only completed 2 or 3 new cuts before I realized what I'd done. I was using Text Edit and I just clicked 'Undo Typing' (Command Z) in the Edit menu several times and was able to go back in my document and find what I had lost. I had a large file I had been working on so I was elated. I hope this helps.

And now that a couple more years have gone by and OS X has been through some dramatic changes... Here we are at Yosemite and the question is still unanswered:

• Can we recover lost clipboard data without previously having one of these apps installed?
• Does OS X keep any kind of log or not?
  

I've just tried CopyClip which appears to do what I need and is very lightweight which I like.
It's free and available from the Apple App store.

rootbeerinacan said:

I'm disappointed to lose 1000 clipped words, but happy to breathe life into this old thread at least one more time.

Click to expand...

The topic is alive! I've bumped into this today when I've lost a big essay I wrote in a web form.

h4lp m3 said:

And now that a couple more years have gone by and OS X has been through some dramatic changes... Here we are at Yosemite and the question is still unanswered:

• Can we recover lost clipboard data without previously having one of these apps installed?
• Does OS X keep any kind of log or not?

Click to expand...

Has this ever been answered?

No.
No.
No.
(change one to Yes)