My journey of building ClipBolt - A Macos clipboard manager
- Productivity
- Development
- Clipboard Manager
- Solo Project
- macOS App
Published on
I spend a considerable portion of my day copying and pasting things. Code snippets, URLs, notes, random text I find online. Like many people, I copy something, then immediately lose what I had copied before forever. This frustration kept happening all the time, so I decided to fix this.
So I started building!
The Problem I Was Trying to Solve
Every Mac user knows this pain. You copy something important, then copy something else, and the first thing is gone forever and it will be time consuming to get it back.
I tried other clipboard managers, but they either seem too complicated or too simple. Some had dozens of features I never used. Others looked like they were built in 2005. I wanted something that looks simple and not-disturbing while being packed with useful features under the scenes.
What ClipBolt Does
ClipBolt saves everything you copy automatically. When you need something back, you press a keyboard shortcut of your choice and see your clipboard history directly. Click what you want, it will paste directly, and the app will auto disappear.
But I added a few things that make it more useful:
- Smart Organization: Instead of just showing a long list, ClipBolt groups similar items together by using AI auto-tagging.
- AI Features: Sometimes you copy text that’s too long or complicated. ClipBolt can make it shorter or rewrite it in simpler words. It can also read text from images you copy using OCR. Translate text you copied. Describe images or visuals you don’t totally get. And all of those are un-disturbing, they are only there when you need them.
- Search Everything: Type a few letters and find what you’re looking for instantly, even if you copied it days ago.
Why I Chose Mac Only
Mac is my OS of choice, and I know well what Mac users expect. They care about design and simplicity. They want apps that don’t get in the way. Instead of trying to build for everyone, I focused on building something that feels natural on macOS.
The Technical Side
Building ClipBolt taught me a lot about macOS development. The hardest part was making it fast. When you press the keyboard shortcut, the app needs to appear instantly. No waiting, no loading screens.
One thing I needed to figure out is handling different types of content. Text is easy, but images, and formatted content needed more effort.
The feedback I got
The early feedback has been encouraging. They like that it’s simplicity and clean interface. One said they like how it doesn’t feel overwhelming but have everything they needed. Other liked the extra features backed-in.
A few developers mentioned they love how it handles code snippets. It keeps formatting and makes it easy to find old code they copied.
Where It’s Going
Right now, I’m working on publishing ClipBolt so it enters the Beta phase. I’m working with early users to fix bugs and add features they actually want.
If you’re interested, you can join the waitlist to get notified when it’s ready. I would strongly encourage joining the waitlist because I will know someone else care about it. Early subscribers will get lifetime free access to ClipBolt, even when it turns into a paid product.
Sometimes the best products come from solving your own problems. That’s what ClipBolt is for me.
Thanks for reading