Essential is a lightweight, fast, menu-bar clipboard manager for macOS. It captures everything you copy, sends screenshots directly to your clipboard, and lets you browse your full history instantly with global shortcuts.

• Tracks your clipboard automatically
• Stores up to 150 items (text + images)
• Smart deduplication
• Instant pop-over search
• Global shortcut: ⌘⇧V

• Full screen: ⌘⇧3
• Selection: ⌘⇧4
• Screenshots go directly to your clipboard
• Optional saving: choose a folder where screenshots are stored (default: ~/Documents/Screenshots)

• Choose your menu-bar icon (</>, ⌘, ⌥)
• Select your screenshot folder anytime
• Minimal, distraction-free UI

• Runs from the menu bar
• Can launch at login
• Very low resource usage

git clone https://github.com/Vastyen/Essential
cd Essential
open Essential.xcodeproj

Then build & run with ⌘R.

1. Download the latest Essential.dmg
2. Drag Essential.app into your Applications folder
3. Important: Before opening, run this command to remove macOS quarantine:

xattr -cr /Applications/Essential.app

4. Open Essential normally

Essential will ask you for:

1. Screen Recording permission (for screenshots)
2. Menu-bar icon selection
3. Screenshot folder (you choose where screenshots are saved)
4. Done — you're ready to use it

Required for capturing screenshots. System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen Recording → Enable Essential

Allows Essential to intercept ⌘⇧3 / ⌘⇧4 reliably. System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility → Enable Essential

Screenshots not working?

• Check Screen Recording permission
• Disable the native macOS screenshot shortcuts
• Make sure Accessibility permission is enabled

Clipboard not updating?

• Relaunch Essential
• Clear History and try copying again

• Bundle ID: open.Essential
• History limit: 150 items
• Polling: 0.5s
• Swift + SwiftPM
• Dependency: KeyboardShortcuts by Sindre Sorhus

MIT — free and open source.