/ Published in Gümrük Malları

Maccy Backup and Restore: How to Save Your Settings, Pins, and Clipboard History

Maccy Backup and Restore: How to Save Your Settings, Pins, and Clipboard History

Quick answer: Maccy has no one-click export, but everything it keeps lives in two places you can copy: a preferences file (your settings) and a small SQLite database (your history and pinned items). Quit Maccy App, copy both to a safe folder, and to restore, put them back in the same locations before relaunching. Settings alone can also be exported with a single defaults command.

What does Maccy actually store, and what should you back up?

Maccy Mac is local-first, so there is no account and no cloud copy to fall back on. Your data exists only on your Mac. It falls into three layers, and they need different treatment:

Layer What’s in it Worth backing up? Method
Settings Global shortcut, history size, ignore lists, appearance, paste behavior Yes, always defaults export or copy the .plist
Pinned items Snippets you pinned for reuse Yes, these are curated and hard to recreate Copy the database
Clipboard history Everything you copied recently Usually no. It’s ephemeral and often sensitive Copy the database (optional)

Pinned items and history share the same database, so you can’t back up one without the other. If you only want pins, restore the database and then clear unpinned items from the menu afterward.

Step 0: Which Maccy build are you running?

This matters more than anything else in this tutorial, because file locations differ. The Mac App Store version runs in Apple’s sandbox, which relocates its data into a container folder. The build from GitHub or Homebrew (brew install maccy) is not sandboxed.

App Store (sandboxed) GitHub / Homebrew
Data folder ~/Library/Containers/org.p0deje.Maccy/Data/Library/Application Support/Maccy/ ~/Library/Application Support/Maccy/
Preferences file ~/Library/Containers/org.p0deje.Maccy/Data/Library/Preferences/org.p0deje.Maccy.plist ~/Library/Preferences/org.p0deje.Maccy.plist

Not sure which you have? Open Terminal and run ls ~/Library/Containers | grep -i maccy. If it prints org.p0deje.Maccy Clipboard, you’re on the sandboxed build. If nothing appears, check ~/Library/Application Support/Maccy/ instead. (Libraries are hidden in Finder by default. Use Go → Go to Folder… and paste the path.)

How to back up Maccy settings

Option A: The defaults command (non-sandboxed build)

Maccy’s preferences live in the org.p0deje.Maccy defaults domain. Export them to a portable file:

defaults export org.p0deje.Maccy ~/Desktop/maccy-settings.plist

This is cleaner than copying the raw preferences file because it reads the live values rather than whatever macOS last flushed to disk.

Option B: Copy the plist directly (works for both builds)

Quit Maccy from its menu bar icon first, then copy the preferences file from the path in the table above. Quitting matters: macOS caches preferences in memory and can overwrite your copy or the restored file on exit.

Heads-up for App Store users: defaults export reads the regular preferences location, not the sandbox container, so on the sandboxed build it may return empty or stale values. Use Option B for that build.

How to back up pinned items and clipboard history

  1. Quit Maccy completely. The database is in active use while the app runs.
  2. Open the data folder for your build (see the table above).
  3. Copy the whole Maccy folder. Don’t cherry-pick one file. SQLite databases in WAL mode keep recent writes in companion files (typically -wal and -shm next to the main .sqlite file), and a backup of only the main file can silently miss your latest pins.
  4. Paste the folder somewhere safe, ideally with a date in the name, such as maccy-2026-10-21.
  5. Relaunch Maccy.

A quick one-liner for the non-sandboxed build:

osascript -e 'quit app "Maccy"'
cp -R ~/Library/Application\ Support/Maccy ~/Desktop/maccy-backup-$(date +%F)
open -a Maccy

How to restore Maccy on the same Mac or a new one

  1. Install Maccy (same distribution channel as before, so the paths match) and launch it once so it creates its folders. Then quit it.
  2. Restore the database: replace the contents of the Maccy data folder with your backup copy.
  3. Restore settings:
    • Non-sandboxed: defaults import org.p0deje.Maccy ~/Desktop/maccy-settings.plist
    • Either build: copy the saved .plist over the one at the preferences path.
  4. Flush the preference cache: killall cfprefsd
  5. Relaunch Maccy and open it with your shortcut. Your pins and settings should be back.
  6. Re-grant permissions. macOS ties Accessibility permission to the installed app, so on a new Mac you’ll need to enable Maccy in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility before auto-paste works.

Moving between sandboxed and non-sandboxed builds? Copy the files into the new build’s matching paths. The format is the same, only the location changes, though I’d test with a throwaway copy first.

Automating it: Time Machine and a tiny script

Time Machine already covers this if it’s running. Both data locations sit inside your home Library, which Time Machine includes by default. To restore, open the folder in Finder, enter Time Machine, and pull back an older copy of the Maccy folder with Maccy quit. For most people, that’s the entire backup strategy.

If you want a deliberate, portable copy (say, for dotfiles or a new-Mac checklist), a settings-only script is the sweet spot:

#!/bin/bash
# Back up Maccy settings only (non-sandboxed build)
mkdir -p ~/Backups/maccy
defaults export org.p0deje.Maccy ~/Backups/maccy/settings-$(date +%F).plist

Settings are small, non-sensitive, and safe to keep in a dotfiles repo. The database is neither of those.

The part people skip: your backup is full of secrets

A clipboard database is a diary of everything you copied: API keys, addresses, snippets of private messages, sometimes passwords. Maccy ignores copies that password managers mark as concealed, which helps, but that depends on the source app behaving correctly. Treat the database accordingly:

  • Never commit it to Git or drop it in a shared cloud folder.
  • Store it encrypted: an encrypted disk image (Disk Utility → New Image → Blank Image, with encryption) or a FileVault-protected volume.
  • Consider backing up pins only. Restore the database, open Maccy’s menu, and use Clear to remove unpinned history. Before sharing a backup, strip what you don’t need.
  • Delete old copies. A six-month-old backup still contains every secret you copied back then.

This is the honest trade-off of a local-first tool: there’s no server holding your data, which is a privacy win, but it also means you own the responsibility of handling the files properly.

When restore doesn’t work

Symptom Likely cause Fix
Settings didn’t change after import macOS preference cache Quit Maccy, run killall cfprefsd, relaunch
History is empty after restore Wrong build’s folder, or copied only the main database file Re-check the path table; copy the whole folder including companion files
Pins appear but latest ones are missing Backup taken while Maccy was running Redo the backup with Maccy fully quit
Shortcut works but auto-paste doesn’t Accessibility permission not granted on the new install Enable Maccy under Privacy & Security → Accessibility
Restored settings revert on quit Maccy was running during the file copy Always quit before touching files

The short version

Back up the settings often (it’s trivial and harmless), back up the database only if you have pins worth keeping, and always do it with Maccy quit. Encrypt anything that includes history. That’s the whole system, and it takes about two minutes the first time.

Maccy is free and open source, so if something in your setup behaves differently than described here, the project’s GitHub issues are the best place to check current behavior. Which layer matters most to you, your settings or your pins? If it’s pins, our guide to organizing them is a natural next read.

FAQ

Does Maccy have a built-in export or import feature?

Not as far as I’m aware, which is why this tutorial uses file copies and the defaults command.

Does Maccy sync clipboard history through iCloud?

No. Maccy stores everything locally and has no sync service. Apple’s Universal Clipboard shares the current clipboard between your devices, but that is a separate system feature and doesn’t create a synced history.

Where does Maccy store its data on a Mac?

In ~/Library/Application Support/Maccy/ for the GitHub and Homebrew builds, or inside ~/Library/Containers/org.p0deje.Maccy/ for the Mac App Store build.

Will Time Machine back up my Maccy history?

Yes. Both locations are under your user Library folder, which Time Machine includes by default, unless you’ve added an exclusion.

Can I back up only my pinned items?

Not on their own. Pins and history share one database. Back up the database, then clear unpinned items after restoring if you want a clean slate.