Clear clipboard history on Mac, and the copy that is on it now

Clear the clipboard on a Mac: replace what is on it right now

The system clipboard holds one item, so there is nothing to delete here. You overwrite it. Select a harmless word somewhere and copy it, then paste into an empty document to confirm the sensitive item is no longer what comes out.

That is the whole operation, and also the limit of it. Stored history entries are untouched, and anything you already pasted into a message, a document or another device stays exactly where you put it.

Clear Spotlight clipboard history on macOS Tahoe 26 or later

Press Command-Space, then open Clipboard with the button beside the search field or with Command-4. Use the More button next to the search field and choose Clear History. That is Apple's own cleanup route on the versions that include the feature. On Sonoma 14 or Sequoia 15 there is no such list, so there is nothing to clear there.

Clearing here does nothing to a third-party list. If Deskferry is also recording, its entries sit in their own store and have to be cleared in the app. Two tools means two cleanups — and the same is true of any other history app you have installed.

Clear clipboard history on Mac: one entry, or the whole local record

For a single item, open History, find the entry and choose Delete from its action menu. To empty the list on that Mac, open History settings, choose Clear All and confirm.

Clear All is broader than what you can see. It removes records outside the current search and type filter, including older ones you could only view as a summary or a restricted preview, and it cannot be undone — so save anything you still need first. It is also local: it clears this Mac's history, not another Mac's. And a file that the current clipboard still points at may remain pasteable afterwards, which is why the step above matters too.

Stop new entries, then check your work

Turn off Record Clipboard History in Deskferry's History settings if you want the list to stop growing. That switch concerns the future only and leaves existing entries in place, which is why clearing and disabling are two steps and not one.

If you would rather keep recording but hold less, adjust retention time and capacity instead. The default allowance is 10 GB with no expiry set, so the list will keep accumulating until you change that. Material you actually want to keep belongs in a document or a note, not in a list designed to be temporary.

A sensible order for a clean stop: save anything important elsewhere, clear the list you meant to clear, switch recording off if you want no new entries, then copy something harmless to replace the current clipboard. Reopen the history and paste once into a blank document to see that both look the way you expect. Be precise about what that proves, though. It shows these stored entries are gone and the current paste is harmless. It says nothing about copies sitting in sent mail, in saved files, in a backup or on another Mac, and it is not a guarantee about what remains on the disk itself.